LSK – Side Stories: Faking reality. (Part 2)

*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.

 

Jacques walked aimlessly around the Holy Temple, greeting the passing holy knights and pondering on what he was going to do next……

"Stammer!"

The sudden shout startled him from his thoughts. Jacques looked around him for the source before pinpointing it to a room further along the hallway. He peeped into the room and saw the Earth Knight and his student – Georgo – inside. But the strange thing was – there was also a priest in the room, and the priest was a pretty girl somewhere around his age.

"Georgo! Stammer when you speak! And you should be blushing when you see any girl…… You brat! Look at me when I'm scolding you! Stop flirting with her! And stay away from her!"

Georgo sighed as he looked at the blushing girl wistfully. Just a little more and he would have had her in the palm of his hand, but unfortunately, he dared not push his teacher any further. So he stepped back, but he couldn't resist pointing out, "Teacher, you're not stammering either……"

The Earth Knight realised his too-fluent speech too late and coughed lightly. "I-I was just too-too upset. Y-you were too dis-disobedient…… Argh! I told you to stammer, not for me to stammer! If you don't start stammering right now I swear I'll punch your face in till your teeth drop out. We'll see then if you can speak so smoothly with a few missing teeth!"

When he heard the threat, Georgo immediately adopted a shy and quiet demeanour and nodded his head sincerely. "Ah! I got it, already!"

But the Earth Knight was still not satisfied. "'Ah!' is not stammering! You should say: 'Oh, I-I got it!' Don't add the 'already'! And your expression! You call this sincere and down-to-earth? You're just being rebellious and trying to anger me!"

Hahaha… Jacques quickly covered his mouth with his hands, trying to muffle the laughter escaping him as he withdrew his head from the room.

'Georgo? Sincere and down-to-earth? Hahaha!'

"Look at her!!"

This time when the second roar sounded, Jacques wasn't startled. He noticed that this wasn't coming from the Earth Knight's room however, but from the room next door.

'What is it this time?' he wondered as he peeped into the other room.

To his surprise, the scene inside the second room looked rather similar to the previous one. Similarly, there was a student and his teacher, but this time it was the Storm Knight and his student. And again, there was a female priest in the room, but this time, the priest was older, her curvaceous figure and matured beauty declaring her to be in her twenties.

"Ceo, look at her in the eye," the Storm Knight ordered icily.

Ceo forced his head up to look at the female priest, but he looked rather constipated as he did so.

The Storm Knight then turned to the priest and said, "Madame, please."

"No problem," the female priest said coyly, winking at the handsome little boy as she began posing seductively and throwing him come-hither looks.

This time, Ceo tried his hardest not to look back down, having heard the unspoken threat in his teacher's cold voice earlier, but his face was as red as a tomato, and his blush was even spreading to his ears and down his neck.

"Kiss her."

When he saw that his student could finally stare at a woman without looking away, the Storm Knight decided to bring it to the next level. However, he hadn't expected his student to look at him in a betrayed manner, as if he had just pushed him into the fiery depths of hell himself. A little stab of guilt hit him, so he relented. "Just on the cheek."

"Teacher, can't we just hold hands? Please?" Ceo pleaded, but his teacher's face remained as icy as ever, and there was even a storm brewing in his eyes at this plea. So Ceo turned back to the female priest. The latter no longer had her seductive expression on and was now looking at him as if she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

When he saw this, Ceo felt less nervous. He turned back to look at his teacher once more, but the latter remained steadfast in his cold gaze. Left with no other choice, Ceo gathered all his courage and puckered his lips, lightly pecking the female priest on her cheek before immediately rushing away to hide in the corner of the room, his face red.

When he saw his student's antics, the Storm Knight roared thunderously, "You brat! I've been training you for three years now, and yet you can't even kiss a woman properly, acting as if I'm forcing you to kiss an old hag?!"

"Excuse me?!" The female priest protested in an offended voice.

The Storm Knight blinked at that, but before he could recover, the female priest had already stomped up to him and given him a loud slap.

"No-no! I was saying that you are as beautiful as a hag…… Ah! Stop kicking me! It was a slip of the tounge, I misspoke! I'm sorry!"

At this, Jacques could no longer stand to watch this anymore. He barged into the room – and before anyone could react to his entrance – he grabbed the female priest and landed a loud smooch on her cheek. He then turned to the boy huddled in the corner and said, "See, Ceo? What's so hard about kissing her?"

"That's right! This little brother is way cuter than you!" Pleased with Jacques' actions, the female priest gave him several more kisses in reward before turning on both the Storm Knights in disdain. "Useless men!"

"Let's go little brother. Big sis will treat you to some sweets. What would you like? I'll buy them for you."

"Really?" Jacques' eyes lit up in delight as he shouted, "Then let's go, pretty sister!"

The female priest was even further pleased to be called 'pretty sister', and she nodded quickly. "Of course, we'll go right away."

The priest tucked her hand into Jacques' arm and left the room. But not before she threw the two Storm Knights a dirty look.

The two Storm Knights stared blankly after them as they left the room. After some time, Ceo shuffled up to his teacher and tugged at his sleeve shyly. "Teacher, there's no women now, so can we learn something else instead?"

"You idiot!"

The Storm Knight grabbed his student by the ear and roared furiously, "I was called useless! You brat! Don't you know that being called useless by a woman is a great humiliation for a man? You incompetent brat, if you don't learn how to stare at a woman without going red within a year and how to wink at women within two, I'll-I'll spend the rest of my savings on a whole group of hookers and tell them to gang rape you!"

Ceo pleaded with his teacher, tears in his eyes from the pain from his ears and fear from his teacher's threat. "Please, no! Teacher…… I'll-I'll work harder! I swear I will! I swear!"

~O~O~O~O~

After bidding goodbye to the friendly female priest, Jacques abandoned his previous idea of playing around and instead decided that peeking on the others' lessons was much more fun. And so he proceeded to do just that, eating the bag of sweets he just received from the priest as he did so.

Elmairy was taking care of little animals whilst his teacher read out fairy tales to him. Jacques declared it boring after just one glance.

Next, he peeped into the Cloud Knight's lessons room, but there wasn't a single person in the room. Jacques looked around curiously, wondering where they were.

"That's strange! Could it be that he, too, doesn't need the lessons?" mumbled Jacques as he scratched his head in puzzlement. He then turned to leave……

"Are you looking for me?"

"Ah!!"

Jacques jumped and quickly spun around. A person had appeared right behind him without his noticing anything! And added to the fact that the person was as white as a sheet and looked rather frail and wispy with half his face covered by his hair……

"I-I-I wasn't looking for y-you, re-really!"stammered Jacques. Even the Earth Knight would have nodded in approval if he were to hear his stammer.

The little Cloud Knight tilted his head to the side slowly and said, "You were looking in from outside for quite some time."

"……You were inside the whole time?"

The little Cloud Knight slowly nodded his head.

'That's impossible! There was no one inside……' Jacques felt a chill creep up his spine and so he hurriedly changed the topic. "I-I was looking for the little Sun Knight."

Again, the little Cloud Knight nodded slowly. He then lifted his arm slowly and pointed at the wall. "Creus is in the room next door."

"Er, oh, thanks!"

Jacques hurriedly turned to escape…… but he then stopped when a thought occurred to him. His curiosity overpowering his terror, he turned back and asked, "Is-is your teacher in the room too?"

The little Cloud Knight shook his head. "Teacher is napping under a tree right now."

Phew! Thank goodness the Cloud Knight wasn't in the room, or else he really would have believed that it was a ghost he had seen, and not the Cloud Knight.

Jacques patted his pounding heart in relief before asking curiously, "Then why are you not with him?"

"My teacher told me not to disturb him and find somewhere else to drift in."

'Drift…… Are you sure he said drift?'

Jacques waved his hand at him dismissively and said, "Well, if that's so then you can go back to your drifting!"

When he blinked next, he realised that there was no longer anyone standing in front of him.

"… …"

After a moment of speechlessness, Jacques pulled himself together and walked over to the next room. "I hope it's something more normal this time. After all, Creus is my future boss. If he's too weird, I'm not going to take orders from him," he mumbled to himself as he tentatively poked his head in.

"Child, you must often go looking for undead creatures."

Jacques blinked when he heard that. Why would they be talking about the undead? He looked in and saw Creus questioning the Holy Temple's scariest person – history's strongest Sun Knight.

"To carry out the Sun Knight's vow to eradicate all undead creatures, you mean?"

When Jacques heard this, he nodded in comprehension. 'Ahh… Yeah, that makes sense! That's probably what he meant!'

The Sun Knight wagged his finger and said with a mysterious smile, "No, no, not at all. It's because you have to use them as an outlet for your frustrations."

"Huh?" Both Creus and the eavesdropper outside had identical expressions of surprise and confusion.

The Sun Knight then explained in a serious tone, "Think about it. Every day, you have to constantly smile and forgive every single person, and sing praises of the God of Light with each sentence you speak. If you never vent out your emotions, you'll get depressed, and won't be able to carry out your duties as the Sun Knight capably; if you can't do your job well, you might get fired; and with you losing your job, you'll get even more depressed, till at last, you will depart from this world and join the God of Light. Surely you don't want this scenario happening, do you? "

"…… no, sir."

"Well, that is why you will have to vent your pent up emotions on the undead at least once every month, understand?"

"But what if I can't find any?"

"Not to worry, my child. Here, take this business card. It's for a necromancer specially contracted by the Church. Not only can you request for any type of undead creature, you can even put the expenses on the Church's tab."

"……"

Creus wordlessly took the card, a dazed look on his face. But perhaps he had gotten used to such shocks, for he quickly recovered within a few seconds and calmly put the card into his pocket as if there was nothing strange about the whole thing. He then looked back at his teacher, awaiting further teaching.

However, the Sun Knight merely clapped his hands and said, "Alright, that's it for today. I'll be leaving now."

Creus blinked at that and asked in surprise, "Teacher, where are you going?"

"I have a date with the princess…… Er, no! I mean, I have an appointment with the Crown Prince. We have many official matters to discuss, and also to improve relations between the royal family and the Church of Light…… So, I have to leave now or I'll be late. It is not proper to leave a lady waiting."

'I see, so the Crown Prince is a lady too, huh?' thought Creus in exasperation before reminding his teacher, "but teacher, it is still lesson hours right now!"

The Sun Knight was already at the door when he heard this and paused. Jacques, who was still hiding outside let out a sigh of relief. He hadn't had time to hide yet! So taking advantage of this window of an opportunity, he hurriedly hid himself behind one of the curtains along the hallway.

"Is that right?" asked the Sun Knight a little awkwardly. "It's still lesson hours…… hmmm… that is difficult to explain away. Judge just reprimanded me to take things more seriously not too long ago. Alright then! I'll just give you an exercise to carry out now! You will go and pay a visit to that necromancer I mentioned earlier and introduce yourselves to each other."

And with that, he continued on his way.

Creus immediately cried out worriedly, "Wait! Teacher, are you not going to come with me? That's a necromancer, a necromancer! You're going to go with me for at least the first time, right?"

"You're already eighteen! Stop acting like such a child!"

The Sun Knight was already halfway out the room when a shred of responsibility finally hit him. "Just remember not to attack the necromancer! As long as you don't attack them, you won't come to any harm. Alright, now get to it!"

And so after leaving a meagre piece of advice, the Sun Knight left. Creus stared after his disappearing teacher's back whilst saying with a pout, "But teacher, I'm only fifteen……"

 

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