Book 1

Book 1: The Beginning

Prologue: The Beginning

Rule 1: Smile Always

Rule 2: Elegant, graceful, and most importantly - glowing fair skin

Rule 3: Even as you are dying, you'd better make sure that you die elegantly

Rule 4: A Sun Knight must have great recovery skills

Rule 5: Save up, or else you'll have a very bleak retirement ahead of you

Rule 6: When away from home, you rely on your friends. So make friends, even be it an undead corpse

Rule 7: Never underestimate a single thing. Even a robe, when angry, could bite you in the ass

Rule 8: Never act suspiciously while wearing a cloak

Rule 9: If you want to know a secret, ask a woman

Rule 10: Serving out justice is the meaning for the Sun Knight's existence

Epilogue - Rule A: No matter what the circumstances, the Sun Knight is always perfect!

Book 1: The Beginning – Prologue

This is a land filled with various religions.

Here, the gods are not mere figments of faith and imagination, where their names are called out to only in times of difficulty. Oh no, here, Gods are real, and they exist in great numbers.

Some gods are quite “weak”, although this is of course measured in terms of godly power; and some gods are quite strong. The source of their powers is linked to their followers’ faith, so the number of followers plays an important role in determining the Gods’ strengths.

Hence, like crime lords fighting to widen their territories, these gods too are constantly in a struggle to spread the beliefs of their individual religions.

However if the gods were to simply show off their powers in order to ensnare more believers, and thus clash with other gods, I believe that this land would not last very long.

To avoid this from happening, the most powerful god among them set out the ‘Treaty of the Gods’, which forbids all gods from using their powers to directly interfere with the world. The only method that they are allowed to is to bequest powers upon their followers, and let their followers wield the powers at their own discretion.

And so, this was how the religions began.

Among the many religions, the most well known is the Church of the God of Light. Certainly, with the rise of the Church of the God of War and the Church of the God of Chaos, the glory of the Light Church can no longer be compared to that of yesteryears-but as the saying goes, ‘a skeleton-thin camel is still bigger than a horse’; so even though the Light Church’s glory has declined, even though the followers are decreasing year by year, when it comes to the question of which is the oldest, most tradition-filled faith, ten out of ten would answer-the Church of the God of Light.

Everyone knows that within the Light Church, in each generation, there are 12 famous holy knights.

And it doesn’t matter if you are a follower of the Light Faith or not, even 3 year old toddlers know of the perfect, flawless Sun Knight.

The Sun Knight, the leader of the holy knights and the representative of The Light Faith. With a smile as bright as the sun, he has a compassionate soul and will always believe in the good of people, refusing to give up on anyone.

And known to be the most perfect among the perfect, the 38^th generation Sun Knight is flawless. Why, some even go so far as to call him the reincarnation of the God of Light. His tales take up as much as five long epic poems.

He sent the Death Knight to the abyss, defeated an evil lich (an undead creature; a spellcaster who seeks to defy death by magical means), killed a fearsome dragon, rescued a royal princess, destroyed the Great Demon……

And as you can probably guess already, this book tells of this Sun Knight’s tale.

Now, the tale began with a conversation between the 38^th Generation Sun Knight and his teacher, the 37^th Generation Sun Knight……

“My child, from today onwards you are the successor of the Sun Knight. As long as you can endure great pain with fortitude; forge ahead in the face of disappointing failures; and no matter how great the temptation, still be able to uphold the noble morals and chivalry of a knight, then you may receive the title of Sun Knight from me when you are of age.”

“Teacher, can I revert on my decision?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because I forgot to choose a backup successor.”

“……”

Book 1: Rule 1 – The Sun Knight’s First Rule: “Smile Always”

I am a knight. To be more precise, I am the Church of the God of Light's Sun Knight.

The Church of the God of Light worships and serves the God of Light and is also one of the three largest religions on this continent. However - even though it’s only one of the three largest, when it comes to tradition, no other religion can beat the Church of the God of Light.

And as everyone knows, the Church of the God of Light is divided into the army branch - the Holy Temple, and the worship branch - the Hall of Light.

I, of course, belong to the Holy Temple. The Holy Temple has the Twelve Holy Knights. In the past, each Holy Knight commanded their own army; for example, as I am the Sun Knight, I would command the Sun Knight Army.

But in today’s era of peace, the probability of war happening is very low. With no wars, the Knight Army cannot be mobilised; if the armies are not mobilised, there are no chances of pillaging and plundering…… In other words, the Holy Temple could not afford to feed twelve Knight Armies, and it was decided to merge all twelve armies into one, consisting of twelve teams; the team reporting directly to me would be the Sun Knight Team, obviously.

Even though we went from being leaders of a Knight Army to a small Knight Team, I am actually the one least affected, because as the head of the Twelve Holy Knights I would be the leader of the whole army. As long as I’m still the army leader, it doesn’t really make any difference if I am the leader of the Sun Knight Army or the leader of the Holy Army, wouldn’t you agree?

So, who are the Twelve Holy Knights?

Well, I’ll just have to introduce them to you one by one as we go on; if I were to list them all out right now, I’m sure no one would be able to remember them all.

Alright, first of all, the fellow on my right. That’s right, this blue haired guy winking at women left and right, he’s the Storm Knight.

Every Holy Knight should have his own distinct personality and features, key word - ‘should’.

For example, the Sun Knight is the Church of the God of Light’s representative.

That’s right. I’m the Church of the God of Light’s representative.

Therefore, no matter what the circumstances I have to always smile as brilliantly as the sun, even if right now I am going to meet with the most hated and disgusting King Fat Pig of Forgotten Echo (a country), I still have to smile as if I were going to meet with a gorgeous babe.

To force myself to think of the Fat Pig as a beauty, sigh… Bro, do you now realise how difficult this is?

“The benevolent God of Light will forgive your sins.”

During my time as the Sun Knight, I must have said that phrase at least a million times, and with a big smile no less. This is the fate of a Sun Knight, to forever forgive people with a smile.

Because the whole continent knows that the Sun Knight is the representative of The Church of the God of Light, and that he would never give up on redeeming anyone’s soul!

So no matter that my dearest wish is to stab that King Fat Pig and let his more competent son inherit the thrown, I can only put on my bright smile and try to persuade that fat pig not to raise any more taxes!

But I’ve gone off tangent.

In contrast with The Church of the God of Light’s representative, the Storm Knight is a ‘carefree’ knight, hence he is ‘carefree’ and a ‘flirt’. If it’s possible to skip, he’ll skip the meeting! As long as a woman looks just slightly better than a dragon, he has to wink at her.

If there is anything to do with ‘freedom’, he has to involve himself. For example if there was a revolution going on anywhere, he has to at the very least support them by giving a speech; sometimes giving a speech is not enough and he will be dragged into leading the revolution and whatever else.

But the amazing thing is that even if he had skipped all the meetings, he always has ways of knowing about the announcements made during the meetings, and managed to finish all the work assigned. (Sometimes the work load can be quite a lot. Well, what can he do? Who asked him to skip the meetings? We have to take advantage of him being absent and push all the work onto him.) He even knows which meetings are really important and that he has to attend them, and comes for those.

So, even though you are the so called carefree Storm Knight, while it may appear that you can skip meetings, you still have to do all the work assigned to you!

As for being a flirt…… This fellow may have winked at every woman-no matter princesses, ladies, or old maids with toilet cleaners-with an arrogant smile at his lips.

But I have a suspicion that he is actually an innocent virgin. After all, his reputation as a playboy has been around for quite some time now, but till now I have yet to hear of anyone claiming to have been knocked up by him.

His arrogant smile is as fake as his blue hair.

And yes, that hair of his is dyed.

Why, you ask?

Because the whole continent knows that the Storm Knight is blue haired!

I have no idea if the first Storm Knight really had blue hair or if he had just dyed it to look cool, but I know that he has inconvenienced every Storm Knight after him. After all, how common is a blue haired child?

Not common at all!

So, every Storm Knight has to dye their hair for the rest of their lives, and eight out of ten have died from the build up of hair dye chemicals in their body…… Sigh… Storm, I will pray for you now.

“Sun, did you say something to me?” Storm raised an irritated eyebrow, appearing to be annoyed that I had interrupted his flirting.

“Brother Storm, I did not pass on any words to you, perhaps what you heard was the gentle whisperings of the benevolent God of Light.” I answered with a gentle smile.

Storm twitched an eye. I guess he couldn’t stand the way I speak. I myself can’t stand it, but I have to speak in this manner, just as Storm has to wink at every woman, regardless if the woman really was as ugly as a dragon.

And everything I talk about has to revolve around the God of Light; even if I were merely saying that the toilet was blocked, I have to say that it had to be the will of the God of Light.

Because of this, I dislike speaking; and besides, no one said that the Sun Knight has to be chatty.

(Praise the God of Light, that the first Sun Knight had not had a chatty personality trait.)

But back to the topic, Storm Knight has to have blue hair, and I, the Sun Knight, have to have golden hair and blue eyes.

It was due to this head of golden hair that at the audition for the Twelve Holy Knights, my teacher had chosen me over a boy whose hair was more brownish than golden, but whose sword skills were three times better than mine.

Back then, my teacher - the previous Sun Knight - had sadly announced my victory; and from beginning till end, his gaze was solely fixed on that brown haired boy.

Thank goodness for small miracles though. Even though my sword skills weren’t as good as that prodigy, my teacher was comforted by the fact that I am actually highly competent in other areas.

Although… I did often hear him quietly ask the private investigators, “have you found the brown haired boy yet? I’ve gotten the special hair dye from the magician…”

~~*~~*~~

After walking down this really, really long hallway - made with taxpayers’ money no doubt, that wasteful pig - we finally arrived at the king’s audience hall to achieve this trips objective - to persuade him not to raise taxes……although I feel it would be even better if he could do away with the taxes all together.

“Hello, how do you do? I am The Church of the God of Light’s Sun Knight. Graced with the God of Light’s benevolence, I come here seeking an audience with His Majesty to pass on Her message of love.” I smiled warmly at the guards.

The guard gaped at me with awe for a moment before turning to pass on the message. Not a moment later, the doors to the hall slowly swung open.

I threw a smile of gratitude at the guard, and the latter was so moved he had tears of joy in his eyes. Haha! Looks like there’s gonna be another addition to my fan club.

Now, the guard may have been thrilled that the Sun Knight would be so polite to a lowly, unimportant person such as himself, but he shouldn’t flatter himself. I smile just as brightly at everyone else; no matter if it’s the king, or a dirty beggar sitting at a corner, for I am a chivalrous knight.

Yes, the ever smiling Sun Knight.

~~*~~*~~

The Fat Pig was indeed still sitting on his thrown. In fact, he looked even fatter since the last time I saw him; he was now as wide as three grown man. Oh God, why hasn’t he died of an obesity-induced heart attack or something?

With my perfect smile in place, I kneeled down - while fighting the urge to throw up - and lightly kissed his fat hand, and said, “Your Majesty, Sun Knight of the Church of the God of Light brings you the good wishes of the kind and gentle God of Light.”

“Enough, enough! You say that every single time, yet every time you have brought me nothing but troubles and headaches!”

As if it wasn’t you who stirred up trouble first! Do you actually think I like coming to see how much fatter you’ve grown?!

I innocently smiled and explained, “Your Majesty, the God of Light spreads her benevolence over the whole land, seeking only to spread Her teachings of justice and forgiveness to the people, and not to create troubles for Your Majesty. If there has been some kind of misunderstanding, I feel terribly sorry for it, and hope that Your Majesty will allow me a chance to clear up this misunderstanding.”

“Enough!” the King had a tired look on his face upon hearing this long spiel. “Quickly, state your objective for coming here!”

“I thank you for giving me this opportunity to explain this misunderstanding between us. I appreciate Your Majesty’s generosity and patience.” I elegantly stood up, took a few deep breathes and began my long and unbearable speech.

“Since long time ago, the benevolence and love of the God of Light has covered the land, each and every person is Her beloved child. Is there any parent who does not wish the best for their children? There aren’t; and so too does the God of Light wish that Her children may live out their days in happiness, with good food and warm clothing. But while She may be an all powerful God, She cannot go against the rules of the Gods and interfere with mortals, and so She can only pass on this wish of Hers to those of Her Church and trust to leave Her beloved children’s fate to the Kings chosen by the Heavens……”

Here, the King rudely gave a loud yawn.

Damn you, you old fool, you only have to listen to it, you have no idea how difficult it is for me to say it!

“……However, the taxes these few years have made it rather difficult for the people to continue on. Even though this lowly Sun Knight has no way of knowing the thoughts of the God of Light, I thought to myself that surely the kind God of Light would not want to see Her children in such troubles? Oh dear, that Her children are living out such hard lives! Why this must be hurting Her greatly, and that She is hurting so much makes this Sun Knight feel ashamed. I feel unworthy of Her trust in me, letting Her children live in such hard times……”

The king started dozing off. The ministers standing at his side began to take out official documents and were showing them to the Crown Prince for his approval-for the Crown Prince is actually the one in charge of the state affairs.

Storm Knight, who has been standing beside me had already winked at every woman in the room and was preparing to wink at each of them for the second time.

“……Even under these poor circumstances, the people still look up to their king with love and respect, and pay the full tax; what a great show of devotion! Such loyalty should be rewarded. I know that raising the taxes is a necessary evil, but in the face of such devotion from your people, perhaps you should show some appropriate response, so as not to fail the God of Light’s hopes for us.”

Oh, I’m so grateful! I finally reached the main point of my speech. That’s it, reduce the taxes! Damn fat pig, you’ve already collected their harvest, what the hell are you doing asking for more tax collections? Do you really want the people to revolt against you?!

“What?” Suddenly wide awake, the king slammed his meaty hand on the table and shouted, “If I don’t collect additional tax, how am I supposed to refurbish my castle?!”

No……Don’t force me to speak again! I’m am already in great agony.

“Your Majesty” Said Storm Knight casually, “If you are to insist on raising taxes, the Church of the God of Light will not bother to do anything should something unfortunate were to happen.”

Simple and direct! You said it, Storm! I’m so grateful to youuuu! But on the surface, I put on a reproving look and scolded, “Storm, how can you say such things to His Majesty? This goes against the God of Light’s principles”

Storm just shrugged. Theoretically, he has to listen to the orders of the head of the Twelve Holy Knights, me, so he did not speak again. But everything that needed to be said has already been said, so it didn’t really matter.

But it’s all right; the whole continent knows that the Storm Knight has never cared about rules and good manners, so nobody got angry with what he said.

“Th-this is a threat!” The king trembled with fury.

“Oh, Your Majesty, please don’t misunderstand, the God of Light would never use such underhanded tactics…”

But the Church of the God of Light will.

“We feel sympathy for the people who have to live such hard lives… ”

Die you fat pig, it would not be good for both of us should the people revolt! And especially the Holy Temple too; we would have to settle the revolt without getting any kind of payment in return! If you know what’s best then revoke the order for the tax increase, or else we’ll stand by and watch as you are torn apart by the angry mobs, and help to crown the Crown Prince!

“Hmm… Crown Prince, the Pope told me he greatly appreciates you. I wonder when the day will come when I can call you my King?” The Storm Knight bantered with the Crown Prince.

“Please give the Pope my thanks for his praise,” replied the Crown Prince politely.

Hahaha! Not bad, Storm! Another simple and effective threat!

If you don’t revoke the order, we’ll force you to abdicate the throne! You can’t do anything to your very capable son anyway.

As expected, the king’s face turned an ashy colour and after hesitating for a while, weakly waved his hand. “Since the harvest has already been collected, there’s no need to raise the taxes, the refurbishing of the castle can be done some other time.”

Hallelujah! I can finally return to the Holy Temple with the mission completed. Within the Holy Temple, there is no one who would force me to speak! I can happily be a silent Sun Knight!

“However, since you are rarely come all the way out here, we should hold a banquet. You must have a drink with me, or I’ll get upset!” The king grinned evilly.

At this point, even Storm gave me a concerned look.

The whole continent knows that the Sun Knight never drinks. Should he drink a cup, his face will turn red; at two cups, he will get a splitting headache; and after three cups, he will pass out.

I gave a wry smile and looked rather reluctant, but this is obviously an act for the king. After all, he had been threatened twice within a day, I have to give him some sort of small victory or else he may make troubles for the Holy Temple in the future.

“This Sun will…try his best” I pretended to reluctantly yield to him, and knelt before him as etiquette dictated.

“Hahaha, servants! Get the feast ready, and bring out my strongest alcohols!” The king ordered, and the Crown Prince shot me a look of apology. He had been unable to stop his father from raising the tax and had to secretly ask the Holy Temple to interfere in this matter.

Although busy winking and ogling at the women, Storm was still able to shoot me concerned looks.

What are you worried for? I’m a strong drinker!

That’s right. The Sun Knight who is said to be unable to hold his liquor after three cups, is actually a drunkard.

Reflecting back several years ago, when my teacher had brought me to a secret underground cellar……

“My child, the lesson for today is on how to drink alcohol.”

“What? But teacher, isn’t the Sun Knight said to be unable to hold his liquor?”

“The Sun Knight will always forgive others, but how many times have you really forgiven anyone?”

“None so far”

“The Sun Knight is forever smiling, how many times have you really smiled sincerely?”

“Only a few times……”

“The Sun Knight is a benevolent person, are you really benevolent?”

“……”

“Child, if you do not learn how to drink, how can you keep up the act of going red after one cup, getting a headache after two, and passing out after the third?

“So the saying that Sun Knights being unable to hold their liquor is built on the basis that Sun Knights are actually strong drinkers.”

It sounds logical, yet so contradictory!

“Drink up, child. This whole month, you can only drink wine, no water; drink until you can drink wine like you drink water.”

“……”

I was twelve back then. In order to keep up the appearance of the Sun Knight being unable to drink, I became a really strong drinker, where even a thousand cups would not faze me.

Back to reality. At the banquet, I was only in attendance for 10 minutes, for under the encouragement of the king, I ‘passed out’ after my third cup.

Great! I can finally go back to my room and sleep.

Poor Storm who has to keep up his Storm Knight appearance, is still winking at every women at the banquet. And with the number of ladies in attendance……He’s going to get a cramp in his eye.

Book 1: Rule 2 – The Sun Knight’s Second Rule: “Elegant, Graceful, and most importantly-glowing fair skin”

To reward the successful completion of our mission, both Storm and I were given a few days off.

Although it might have been because the Pope took pity on Storm when he saw Storm’s swollen eyes, and the fact that he kept crashing into pillars……(Or maybe he actually couldn’t bear to see another pillar ruined, for each of these pillars were decorated with carvings and were quite pricey!)

Upon receiving the order to take a few days off, without speaking a word, Storm immediately left the Hall of Light and rushed for the base of the Holy Knights – the Holy Temple.

This is because there are many women amongst the priests in the Hall of Light, while the Holy Temple has not a single woman.

It is a very difficult thing to wink at a woman - even a female priest as lovely as a goddess, when your eyes are terribly swollen.

And so Storm left like a gust of wind, and although I, too, could not wait to begin my holiday, I could only walk out of the Hall of Light slowly and elegantly.

For the whole continent knows that the Sun Knight is the most graceful of knights, and no matter what it is I may be doing, it will always be done gracefully and elegantly.

I had always admired my teacher, for regardless if he were merely standing  or sitting or squatting, even when getting on or off his horse, or retreating (escaping), he would still look so graceful.

There was one thing that had particularly impressed me - one day, instead of knocking on the toilet door I had absentmindedly barged in before realising that it was in use. My teacher was squatting inside, shitting……

He had immediately put on the customary Sun Knight’s smile, and, very elegantly finished doing his business, very elegantly wiped himself clean, very elegantly pulled on his trousers, and very elegantly grabbed me before beating me up - very elegantly, of course - for barging in without knocking.

My teacher had often said to me, “Child, you have to know that as a Sun Knight, even if you were to trip and fall, you still have to do it very gracefully.”

I believe this was my punishment for forcing him to shit so elegantly, for I was constantly tripped up by him for a month, until I was able to trip and fall elegantly, anytime anywhere, no matter how suddenly and unexpectedly it may happen.

I had even managed to get a foreign visiting queen to donate 10,000 Gold coins to the Church of the God of Light for the ‘medical bills’, when I had fallen down the stairs so gracefully and elegantly in front of her.

However ever since that incident, I no longer dare to stand near the secretary of the Holy Temple, for I would often find a hand trying to push me down the stairs.

While it is annoying when I do trip and fall, or that I have to take extra care to ensure that the toilet door is locked, having to walk slowly and gracefully actually has an advantage.

Especially when I have to walk slowly and gracefully in the Hall of Light, it allows me to glance and ‘record’ passing beautiful female priests.

Yup, you heard me all right. It’s ‘record’!

The whole continent knows that the Sun Knight has pledged himself wholly to the God of Light, and is the most devoted of followers!

Therefore, the Sun Knight would never spare a glance for any women!

Even if a gorgeous babe as beautiful as a goddess with an hourglass figure were to stand butt naked right beside him, the Sun Knight would be completely unaffected, his gaze never wavering to her!

Bro, do you think any guy can actually achieve that?

 But it’s possible! My eyes truly never wavered in the slightest!

“Child, you are now fourteen years of age, it is time to teach you how to ogle women.”

“Teacher, didn’t you pledge yourself to the God of Light and have no thoughts  to spare for any woman?”

“Child, I may have pledge myself as a knight to the God of Light, but the God of Light did not pledge herself to me as a woman. Therefore, if I need a woman, I can only look to mortal women to satisfy myself! ”

“……”

“My child, I am telling you now that as a Sun Knight, even if there is a beautiful girl passing by, you may not turn to look at her. So you must learn the technique of gazing ahead of you, and record the girl’s image in your mind when you look at her from the corner of your eyes. You can then review the images of the beautiful girls at your leisure, when you are back in your room!”

Hoho…… That one on the left there, she’s not bad. Record!

Oh, hoho, that one coming up on my right, is she new? I’ve never seen her before, record!

“Sun!”

I paused and turned around elegantly to see who had called for me. Fucking shit! Who fucking called me? I haven’t recorded that new priest!

“Brother Frost, may the benevolent God of Light’s loving caress melt that frozen expression of yours.”

The Frost Knight is one of those who are not part of my faction.

What do I mean by this?

The whole continent knows that even among the Twelve Holy Knights, we are divided into two. On one side, led by the Sun Knight is the Warm Good Faction; while the other – the Cold Blood Faction, is led by the Judge Knight.

As you can guess from the names, the Warm Good Faction and the Cold Blood Faction do not get along well, and minor clashes between both factions are known to happen quite often.

“Sun, it is you who should learn to be as stern as the God of Light. You should not have so easily forgiven that useless king,” said Frost emotionlessly. But this is not because he hates me or anything. Oh no, as the whole continent knows, the Frost Knight’s face is forever frozen in an emotionless expression. Not even the burning hot sun can melt that icy expression of his.

“The compassionate God of Light tells me that all sinners could be redeemed. As long as there is a sliver of hope, I will try my best to save every single one of them,” I said compassionately while secretly yawning. ‘Usually’, the Frost Knight does not say much; he just has to reply one more time, and we can be done with it.

“All sinners should get their just punishments; it is useless to keep giving them second chances!” And with that, Frost turn around to leave without letting me have a chance to answer.

This is what I like about him.

Frost Knight does not like fighting, but when the whole continent ‘knows’ that we do not get along, we have to argue at least a few words.

And as the whole continent knows, the Frost Knight is as cold as ice. Not only is he expressionless, he also hates talking; so him leaving abruptly is perfectly normal for a Frost Knight.

Even though we would argue for a bit every time we meet, we actually have a pretty good relationship. Frost Knight, who is skilled in Ice Magic, would often make me a bowl of snow cone during the hot summer seasons.

Of course, to show that we are on opposing sides, he would always argue with me for a bit before throwing a bowl at me; then as we argue some more, he would throw out his specially made blueberry syrup before using his Ice Magic to ‘attack’ me - shooting out ice all over me as well as into the bowl. Ahh… How cool and refreshing!

And so, I get my favourite blueberry flavoured snow cone while still keeping up the appearance that we dislike each other.

This is why I like this guy. So even though I am from the Warm Good Faction and he is a cold heartless person, and the whole continent knows that it’s impossible for us to be friends, we could only become ‘friends who are not friends’.

Speaking of friends, I think I should go and visit one of my ‘friends’, the Earth Knight.

The whole continent knows that the Earth Knight is a good, honest and down-to-earth person. He is rather muscular, but extremely shy, and stutters a lot……

“S-sorry, I’m not used to being around g-girls, a-and talk-talking with them……” Said the blushing Earth Knight while looking at his shoes.

This was the scene I interrupted when I entered the Earth Knight’s room, hearing his conversation with the… 31^st? 32^nd? girl I’ve seen in his room.

He glared at me with darkly while yet still managing to keep a silly smile on his face and said, “Sun, y-you’re back.”

“Indeed, with the protection of the God of Light, I was able to fulfil Her hopes, and complete the mission that the Pope had entrusted me with.”

“Is that so! Hahah, congratulations! Was there something you needed me for?” Earth smiled at me cheerfully.

However, I could see the impatience in his eyes.

“I was kindly reminded by the benevolent God of Light to come and say hello to my best friend, Earth. His grace, the Pope feels that these tasks may not be enough to let me fully understand the God of Light’s great and loving teachings. Therefore, I will be immersing myself in the life outside the Temple to gain further appreciation of Her teachings. ”

It means: This Sun Knight have been given a holiday!

I’m sure I could see an annoyed look in Earth’s eyes. Fuck! If you are on holiday then fuck off already! The woman was staring at me dazedly. I’m quite sure she has no idea what I was talking about. You have to know me for at least three years to be able to decipher the true meaning from my speeches.

This is one of the main reasons why I can never get a girlfriend. Every time I attempt to flirt with a girl, they think that I am preaching to them, and will quickly hand over some donations to escape me.

“That’s great, that you can get some holiday.”

That silly and cheerful smile of his, hmph! I have no idea how many girls have been tricked by that innocent smile of his.

Storm may be a playboy who winks and ogles every woman, but he is actually a virgin; In contrast, Earth is a real womanizer, yet there have not been a single rumour about his womanizing ways, for the whole continent knows that the Earth Knight is an honest, down-to-earth guy; How can it be possible for this guy to be a womanizer?!

It’s ridiculous! Just as ridiculous as the idea that the Sun Knight is a drunkard!

Even though this is the 31^st or maybe 32^nd woman I’ve caught him with in his room, this guy is still the number one of the Most Wanted Husband List.

I may be more handsome than Earth, and have a higher position than him with a higher salary, but I’ve never even been on the Most Wanted Husband List. Because every woman knows that the Sun Knight loves only the God of Light and does not love women.

Fuck!

That’s why I hate him.

And funnily enough, every time I enter his room, he just happens to be wooing a girl, so he hates me too.

But as the whole continent knows, the Sun Knight and the Earth Knight are the best of friends……so we’ll just have to be the best of friends (who hate each other).

I smiled the brightest smile I have - I’ve practiced this smile for ten years, I’ll have you know - and saw the girl blush bright red. She ducked her head in embarrassment, yet could not bear to tear her gaze from me.

Well, I might not be on the Most Wanted Husband List, but I have been the winner of the Top 10 Hot Sunshine Guys for many consecutive years now. It’s easy to make a woman temporarily forget about her ‘most wanted husband’!

“Sun? Aren’t you going off on your holiday?” he said with an honest and kind voice, but the fierce look in his eyes betrayed him. Really, his faking skills are as good as my smiling skills. “If you don’t think up of a plan for your holiday, it’ll be over before you know it.”

I sighed, “Ah, it must be the God of Light passing on Her message through you to me, reminding me to spread her warmth and light to her people. Very well, I now say farewell to you, my friend.”

Fuck off!

Earth glared at me while he pasted on a look of anticipation on his face, and said sincerely, “Then till we meet again, my friend.”

I smiled and nodded, and closed the door behind me happily. Hahaha! From the looks of that girl’s idolising glance, Earth is doomed to fail with this conquest, hahaha! 

Stopping others from getting their girl makes me really happy. Looks like my holiday is starting off on a good note.

Oh wait! I have one more thing to do before I start my holiday.

Now I mentioned earlier that Frost Knight and I actually get along with each other well, but among the Twelve Holy Knights, he is not the best friend. Before I go off on my holiday, I have to visit my real best friend, or he’ll start complaining.

Ah, just as I expected. Not long after I had elegantly sat down on one of the two stools that I had brought along with me, a black haired, black eyed knight dressed all in black burst into the washroom and rushed for one of the toilet bowls before spewing out his guts.

Now, while I elegantly wait for him to empty his stomach, let me introduce him to you. This triple black guy(hair, eyes and clothes, not skin) is my best ‘friend who is not a friend’, the leader of the Cold Blood Faction – Judge Knight.

The whole continent knows of the Judge Knight, the most fearsome and cruel of the Twelve Holy Knights. Parents would scare their children into listening to them by threatening to send them to the Judge Knight, who is in charge of judging the sinners.

As I am the head of the Warm Good Faction, and Judge is the head of the Cold Blood Faction, we are sworn rivals.  

I will always preach that “the God of Light will forgive all your sins.”

While he will always claim that “the God of Light will punish you for your sins.”  

From this, it can be deduced that the God of Light has MPD……Multiple Personality Disorder!

‘If the upper beam is not straight, the lower beam will be crooked’. It means that subordinates will imitate their superiors’ vices. And so, all the Holy Knights are a little weird too.

The supposedly most fearsome and cruel Judge Knight had vomited right after his first interrogation.

Well, this should not be too surprising, as his first interrogation happened when he was only thirteen years old. It’s only natural for a young boy to be shocked by the harsh interrogation methods – and there was torture included.

Although this was many years ago, I can still remember it clearly. My teacher had brought me along to his first interrogation session to meet the future Judge Knight, as well as to practice arguing with him.

Back then, I had felt very satisfied upon seeing the sinner – found guilty of multiple accounts of rape – tied to the cross and being whipped till his back was raw and bloody. 

You scoundrel!

Are you aware that the Sun Knight can only love the God of Light and not women?! Do you know that because of the way that the Sun Knight has to speak, I can never get a woman?

And yet, you, you blasted rapist dare to use such a despicable way to get women! You make me feel so (envious)…… I mean, sick! You should be whipped till death!

Just then, my teacher had elbowed me, and I remembered that I was supposed to be practising my arguing with the future Judge Knight.

I immediately put on a horrified look and exclaimed, “Oh, this is just too cruel! How could you use such brutal methods on the God of Light’s people? Even though he has sinned, there is still a chance that he may feel remorse for his actions and repent! The benevolent God of Light would never allow such cruel actions!”

All right, I went first, so it’s now your turn.

When I glanced at my teacher, he had an approving look on his face, and I knew that I had begun the fight perfectly.

However, the black haired, black eyed and black clothed Little Judge Knight just kept quiet. I could have sworn that it was guilt and regret that flashed in his eyes, and there was a hint of tears welling up when I was admonishing him.

When he could no longer keep his tears from spilling out, he struggled out from his teacher’s hold and ran away, knocking into me in the process.

“Child, why are you not going after him to teach him of the God of Light’s merciful nature?” My teacher had patted me encouragingly.

What? No way? You still want me to continue reprimanding him when he’s already in tears?......

“Remember to bring along a handkerchief, some clean water and two stools with you.” After giving me this strange instruction, he turned around to begin the argument with his rival – the God of Light’s benevolence versus Her stern and punishing nature - Round XXX.

And so, I followed my teacher’s instructions and hurried off after my future rival with a pail of water, a handkerchief and two stools.

In the end, I found him in a washroom not too far off from the interrogation building, where he was throwing up everything he had eaten in the past three days.

I stood there waiting for him till my legs became tired, and, remembering the two stools, I gave one to my rival, while I sat on the other.

And there I sat waiting till he was finally done.

When I saw his dishevelled state, I naturally handed him the handkerchief and pail of water. He took them distractedly and started cleaning himself up.

So, that’s what the stools, handkerchief and pail of water were for. I wondered if my teacher had gone through a similar experience with his rival?

The future Judge Knight quietly washed the handkerchief before returning it to me. He did not thank me, for the Sun Knight and the Judge Knight are archrivals, we each represent two different sides of the God of Light and should never get along.

We just quietly stared at each other; I did not want to lecture him on the God of Light’s benevolence, and he did not wish to argue back about the God of Light’s stern and unforgiving nature.

And it was from then on that we had a mutual agreement to meet up at the washroom to exchange words of the God of Light’s benevolence and unforgiving nature. I would bring along the stools, handkerchief and a pail of water; and he would bring the tea and snacks prepared beforehand.

Well, as you know, you always feel hungry after throwing up, right?

Although the snacks he brings are always ones that he dislikes, but that which I love the most – the super sweet type.

Back to the present, the Judge Knight has finally finished vomiting, and as usual, he accepts the water and handkerchief I hand him, while saying, “Sun, it has been a long time since you last came here, I thought that you had finally understood that the God of Light’s stern justice is the only way to stop the sinners from doing wrong.”

 He’s complaining that it’s been a long time since I last visited him.

“The benevolence of the God of Light exists not only within the Holy Temple. Even the king’s castle is under her care, and the king wished to learn more of Her holy teachings. ”

I was sent to ‘teach’ that fat pig a ‘lesson’.

“The king must have scoffed at you and your mild teachings. Only the stern nature of the God of Light can let him understand the error of his ways.”

That fat king must have been difficult. Judge gave me a pitying look.

“With the help of the Brother Storm, the king was finally able to gain enlightenment of the God of Light’s benevolent teachings.”

It was all thanks to Storm, or else that pig would never have reduced the tax.

“Storm Knight must have deeply regretted that he had not given a stern lecture to those in the castle. Can his eyes not see all the sinners in the castle?”

The castle is filled with women…… are his eyes OK?

“He did indeed gaze upon the sins within the castle. Even though he was saddened by them, he still accepts and embraces them all with the God of Light’s forgiving nature.”

His eyes nearly went bust.

“May the God of Light not punish him for standing by without bringing all the sinners to justice.”

Poor guy……hope his eyes get better soon.

“The pope has already passed on Her support to him, and told him that the warm healing sun outside will embrace him for three days. This Sun feels happy and grateful that I, too, could share her gentle teachings with him.”

He was given three days off. Same with me.

“May the hot midday sun teach both of you of Her stern justice. For no matter where you go, She will always be there to punish those who sin.”

Hope you guys have a good time! Where do you plan to go to?

“The light of the Benevolent God shines upon every inch of this land, even be it this lowly Sun Knight’s room.”

I’m going to stay in my room and sleep.

Judge’s stern face cracked to reveal a small smile. Shaking his head, he handed over his share of the snacks to me. “May you one day receive Her stern teachings.”

“And may you one day receive her gentle messages.”

I bit down on one of the snacks; Mmm…. Blueberry flavour, my favourite.

~~*~~*~~

Now, even though I told Judge I would be sleeping for the whole three days…… What? What are you giving me that look for? You don’t believe that I will really spend all of my holiday sleeping?

What’s that? Go pick up girls at a bar?

Don’t be silly, I don’t want to earn money for the Church! Before I can even woo them into my bed, they’ll have thrown money at me to stop my ‘preaching’.

Oh? Why don’t I just go drinking instead (since I love drinking)?

Are you crazy?

Don’t you remember who I am?

I’m the Sun Knight! How can the Sun Knight-who is well known for passing out after only three cups, go drinking in a pub?

You don’t really think that just ‘cause I’m on vacation, I can stop being a Sun Knight for three days, do you?

My teacher often said to me, “A Sun Knight is for life. So smile even till your very last breath!”

So even when on vacation, I am the Sun Knight still; the only difference being that I am ‘a Sun Knight on vacation’.

Even when on vacation, I have to paste this smile on my face.

Even when on vacation, I have to praise the God of Light with each sentence I speak.

Even when on vacation, I may only record passing beauties.

So. I’d rather spend my time cooped up in my room sleeping than to go out and keep up the act. In my room, I am free to express myself in any way I want, I have no need to watch what I say, and I can fantasize about all the lovely ladies I’ve recorded……

And while in my room, I can enter the secret trapdoor hidden beneath my bed. It leads to a secret underground cellar filled with barrels of wine made by the last Sun Knight, and the Sun Knight before him, and the Sun Knight before him……. At the same time, in thanks for the wine left behind by previous Sun Knights, as well as for the future well ‘drinking’ of future Sun Knights to come, I too, have to do my share and make my specialty-apple wine.

My teacher often said, “Child, if your sword skills are poor, the worst that can happen is that you die earlier in a fight. If your holy skills are poor, the worst that can happen is that you won’t be able to heal the sick; in that case, just say a prayer or two and pray that he joins Her holy presence soon. But! You must make sure that you have your wine making skills down pat, or else the Sun Knights in coming generations will curse you for depleting the wine cellar without replenishing it!”

My teacher’s speciality was grape wine; hence there is an abundance of grape wine in the cellars for me. Similarly, my speciality is apple wine, so my future student will have a cellar full of apple wine to enjoy.

Although, to make my apple wine, I have to constantly sneak apples from the kitchens. Now, the cooks all think that this Sun Knight loves apples. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. I like apples as much as I like Earth; that is, not at all!

~~*~~*~~

So, to avoid smiling; to avoid speaking of the benevolent God of Light; to avoid seeing anymore apples……

I think it’s best that I lock myself in my room and sleep. Oh, and not to mention, the difficult task of maintaining my skin’s fair condition.

What! You think it’s unmanly for me to care for my skin? Well, it’s not like I want to!

The whole continent knows that the Sun Knight is a golden haired, blue eyed, fair skinned hottie!

To become the fair skinned hottie of the legends, every Sun Knight eventually becomes an expert at making whitening masks. Although, I do believe that I’m one of the better ones in this particular aspect.

I know I’m called the Sun Knight, but I really do hate the sun, for no reason other than that my skin darkens easily. For every day that I spend under the sun, I have to apply a whitening mask for a whole night, just to salvage my fair skin.

It was precisely because I had such a hard time keeping up the image of a fair skinned Sun Knight that I became proficient at putting together whitening masks, as well as researching newer and better recipes. After all, the Sun Knight is expected to have glowing fair skin, even if he had spent a whole day fighting evil monsters under the blazing sun, and I have to keep up with that image.

This is best recipe I’ve developed so far:

·         Soured milk

·         10 drops of lemon juice

·         Extract from 30 roses

·         Extract from 10 lavenders 

·         Flour

Mix all ingredients thoroughly before applying onto body. Steam yourself for 1 hour.

(Note: Don’t try this at home. This Sun Knight is a trained expert, and unless you are one too, don’t try this at home!)

With this recipe, it is guaranteed that even if I train under the sun for a whole day, my skin will only be a mere shade darker than usual the next day.  

Actually, I secretly believe that the first Sun Knight was an albino.

Or else, how could he have maintained his fair skin even after training, battling and lecturing kings, all under the blazing hot sun? Even to the extent that he could have left the impression of a fair skinned hottie even until today?

But there is one thing that I hate-even more than Earth, or apples. Why is it that, every single time I have disrobed and started putting on the whitening mask, someone will always come knocking at my door?!

‘Knock, knock, knock!’

You see! Just as I said! Shit! I must be cursed!

Sadly, I’m becoming accustomed to it and have resigned myself to expecting the interruptions.

“May I ask which brother of mine has come seeking me under the guidance of the benevolent God of Light?”

He better have a good reason for interrupting me! Or he’ll get a face full of my whitening mask!

“It’s me, Leaf. Thank goodness you’re here. Hurry! Undead creatures have been spotted in the city.”

Leaf Knight? Ah, he’s one of the Good Warm Faction, and one of the Twelve Knights that I actually like.

The reason-he really is a good guy.

“Brother Leaf, please wait for a brief moment. I was kindly reminded by the God of Light to always present one’s self to the world with a clean and tidy demeanour.”

No matter how important it is, I still have to wipe off all this whitening paste, and put on some clothes.

Otherwise, the others might mistake me for the undead, and attack me instead. Even I have to admit that with the way I am right now, I look no better than a rotting undead corpse.

“That’s alright. Take your time, Sun. I’ll hold off the undead for now. Don’t worry, I’ll definitely leave some for you to deal with!” And with that, Leaf Knight turned and left hurriedly.

See how nice he is? Why, if I were a woman, I’d definitely tell him-softly and gently, “You’re the best!”

The whole continent knows that the Sun Knight hates the undead the most, for these creatures go against the God of Light’s every principles. These dark creatures that violate the very laws of death itself are completely opposed to the light filled Sun Knight; the very sight of an undead creature is enough to drive the Sun Knight crazy. The undead are the only creatures that the Sun Knight cannot forgive.

What this means for me is that I can shout and howl in anger, and slash and stab them. I can release all my pent up anger, aggravation, and resentment-from having to smile all the time, having to speak of the God of Light with every sentence I utter, having to ignore women, having to apply a whitening mask every other day-all my frustrations can be released upon them!

My teacher often said to me, “My child, you will often have to go looking for undead creatures.”

“To carry out the Sun Knight’s vow to eradicate all undead creatures, you mean?”

“Not at all. It’s because you have use them as an outlet for your frustrations.”

“Huh?”

“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; with you losing your job, you’ll get even more depressed till at last, you will depart 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 put the expenses on the Church’s tab.”

“……”

So, to avoid falling into a depression, to avoid losing my job and to avoid meeting the God of Light too soon, I quickly scraped of all the whitening paste of my body and got ready to vent all my frustrations on the unsuspecting undead.

Thank God I had yet to begin the steaming process.

Wet paste is definitely easier to scrape off than the dried mask. If you don’t believe me, next time slap some glue onto yourself and see which one is easier to scrape off; the wet part? Or the dried part?

(Word of advice, though… I have been specially trained. So if you aren’t, well… I won’t be held responsible for the consequences for said experiment.)

Back when my teacher was teaching me how to apply a whitening mask for the first time, he forgot to tell me something very important. When he had remembered and rushed back, the mask had already dried, and I was in the process of scraping it off……

“My child! No matter what you do, don’t apply the paste onto your ‘important bits’, or else……” 

“Ahhhhh!!!”

Since then, not a single hair has grown around my most important bits.

 My teacher had always felt guilty for not warning me in time, and so ever since, he took extra care when teaching me not to leave out anything else.

But back to the story, I easily washed away all the paste with no problems; although, together along with the paste are all my effort (and money), flowing down the drain. The Church refused to pay for my expenses-rose and lavender extract don’t come cheap!

And so I watched sadly as my salary flowed down the drain…… Damn it! I’m going to release all my anger and frustrations on those damned undead creatures!

I put on my uniform, grabbed a sword and kicked open my door. Luckily Leaf, that nice guy, had thoughtfully instructed an apprentice to lead me to the fight, for I had no idea where the undead creatures were.

Leaf! I swear that when I’m done venting my frustrations, I will suggest that the Holy Temple issue you a Good Knight Certificate.

Book 1: Rule 3 – The Sun Knight’s Third Rule: “Even as you are dying, you’d better make sure that you die elegantly.”

I quickly rushed down the streets towards the battle scene, leaving the guide behind, for I could easily sense the strong aura of the undead ahead of me. I've never felt such a strong undead aura appearing in the city before……

(Don't tell me it's because I asked for higher level undead creatures from the necromancer? But from what my teacher told me, the Church refused to pay a lot for the necromancer's services, so they'll only summon the weakest corpses for me…?)

There was a small house ahead…… I leaped onto the roof, got a better look at the battlefield, before leaping down while yelling, "Undead creatures that violate the laws of nature and death, I, the Sun Knight of the Church of Light, swear upon the blinding sun in the sky, to wipe out this blight and cleanse this beautiful world of your evil presence!"

"Sun, you're finally here!" Leaf Knight turned to me with a relieved expression.

Standing beside him were Storm, Earth and Frost, each leading several knights from their own teams. All in total, there were about 20 or so holy knights gathered there. This was the first time I could recall such a large force being mobilised within the city.

However, I could understand the why, for a Death Knight isn't some small fry one could easily deal with…… Hold on, a Death Knight?

The probabilities of successfully summoning a Death Knight are so low that necromancers couldn't be bothered to summon one in the first place, so why is there one here?

Could he have lost his way and came here by mistake?

Shit!

Due to being overly surprised, my control of my left leg slipped, causing it to bend insufficiently and collide into my right leg, which in turn caused my right knee to bend at a wrong angle, leading to my being unable to step out with my right leg properly…… in other words-

I tripped.

In midair.

Luckily for my teacher's 'reasonable' and 'unreasonable' training, my abilities to trip elegantly are second to none. Not even the God of Light Herself would be able to trip more beautifully than me…… of course, I'm sure that the God of Light would never be so 'ungodly' as to trip in the first place!

I bent my waist and tilted my upper body forward, swept out my arms gracefully-not unlike a dancing ballerina's, flipped around 720 degrees in the air before twirling 180 degrees as I land. Touch down! Lastly, I pulled in my arms to my chest in a butterfly shape, took a deep breath and regained the Sun Knight's confident and elegant bearing.

'Clap, clap, clap, clap…!'

The audience immediately burst out into thunderous applause. One of the knights even pounded on his shield while clamouring, "Encore, encore! One more time!"

To hell with you and your 'one more time'! Oh God, why hasn't the Death Knight sent this idiot to Your Holy Being to be re-enlightened?

"10 points!" The ever nice and kind Leaf immediately gave me full marks.

"Hmph! 5 points. His landing was a bit wobbly." Ooh, curse that evil Earth! He must still be upset about me
interrupting his time with the lady.

"8 points. The trip before the queen was more beautiful." Storm……. Alright, you have a point there.
I admit that at that time to avoid humiliating myself in front of a queen, I had called upon my superhuman abilities to-beautifully and elegantly, fall down 323 flights of steps.

Ever since that incident, the Holy Temple's flight of steps hold a special place of hatred in my heart. I hate them even more than Earth.

Shit! Why build such a long flight of steps in the first place?

If it weren't for the hundreds of priests waiting to heal me at the bottom of the steps, I would have became the first Sun Knight to die from falling down the stairs.

Remember when I told you what my teacher had said? "As a Sun Knight, even if you were to trip and fall, you still have to do it very gracefully."

Well…… when I was old enough to go on missions, my teacher had said this to me, "Child, you are now finally able to go out and start carrying out missions. As your teacher, I feel immensely proud of you. But before you go, there's one more thing I have to tell you."

"Yes, teacher. I will be sure to take extra care of myself." I felt so moved. My teacher really does care about me!

"Oh, yes, of course, do take care! But remember that a Sun Knight must be elegant and graceful at all times."

"Teacher, don't worry. I will elegantly and gracefully complete my mission." I nodded obediently.

(Back then, I had already been through several hellish months of training. I had to see the priest for some high level healing every few days to heal some of the nastier injuries I received from my tripping, uh, I mean, training.)

But my teacher shook his head and said, "Child, completing a mission elegantly is only the basics"

"Then what is the next level?"

"Child, remember that should you ever fail in your missions and may be about to die, you have to……"

"Pray to the God of Light?"

"No. You have to think about how you are going to die, and contemplate about which expression you should have as you die. Should you look peaceful, or defiant? And most importantly, should you be killed by being stabbed in the heart, or should you kill yourself rather than dying at the hands of your enemy? Only when you have properly considered the best and most elegant combination, can you then gracefully die. As a Sun Knight, even if you were to die, you still have to die very gracefully!"

"……"


So, if I were to die from such an inelegant way-falling down the stairs, my teacher would probably get so angry, he'd get a necromancer to raise me from the dead just so he could make me die elegantly once more.
"Sun, this Death Knight is pretty strong. Don't underestimate him." With that, Leaf, Storm and Earth backed away, leaving some empty space for the Death Knight and me.

A few of the knights exclaimed, "Isn't it a bit much to let the Sun Knight handle the Death Knight alone?"

"Don't worry. My best friend would never lose to an undead creature." Said the Earth Knight loyally.

"That's true. Sun becomes stronger whenever he sees his most hated undead creatures. Don't go interfering with his fight, or he'll get upset. " Explained Leaf, before throwing a 'don't worry, I won't let anyone interfere with your fight' smile at me.

But-but wait a minute! That was only because those undead creatures that I've been fighting were requested by me to vent out my frustrations on!

At that moment, the Death Knight's sword burst into black flames. He opened his rotting mouth and let out an inhuman roar.

Great. Maybe I should start considering which expression and pose to die with, and chose my favourite method of dying.

I was still thinking about how I should die when the Death Knight leapt at me with his fiery sword and slashed at me…… Don't joke with me! How can I die now when I have yet to come up with the best combination of dying elegantly!

My teacher often said, "It's alright if you don't have natural talent, as long as you practice, practice, and practice. Come on, continue trip for another month, and I'm sure you'll be able to trip elegantly!"

So, if I do not die elegantly, my teacher will revive me again and again, and make me practice dying for a month until I can finally die elegantly……

That's why I cannot die before figuring out the most elegant way of dying! Or alternatively, I have to first leave instructions with Judge to chop up my body into little pieces after my death, so that my teacher would have no way of reviving me!

"He-ah!" I yelled while drawing my sword and blocking the Death Knight's blow.

"As can be expected of the Sun Knight, his aura is indeed impressive." The holy knights marvelled.

"Sun, where is your Holy Sun Blade?" Leaf exclaimed with surprise.

Fuck. The Holy Sun Blade is a priceless ancient artefact! Even though its blade remains sharp as ever, who knows if it will one day break into two?

It doesn't really matter when it breaks, as long as it does not break in my hands. Or else, not even all of my future salary will be enough to pay for it!

Furthermore, I had thought that I would only be fighting those weak undead corpses. Do you ever see anyone using a butcher's knife to kill a chicken? I would never use the precious Holy Sun Blade when letting out my frustrations. It would be rather counterproductive if I had to constantly worry about the sword breaking as I fight.

What's that? You think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill?

Fine, even if it won't break, there are still other problems.

No matter what the weapon may be, be it the Holy Sun Blade or the XX Holy Sword or the YY Malevolent Blade, the weapon's blade would eventually get blunt after using it for some time, and you'll then have to take it in to the blacksmith to sharpen it.

Now, if it were an ordinary sword, it would only cost at most 1 silver coin-which is already quite expensive-to sharpen its blade. But for a sword as priceless as the Holy Sun Blade, no ordinary blacksmith would dare to touch it. I would have to bring it to the city's best blacksmith, who would charge me at least 1 gold coin!

One gold coin! Why, I could buy an ordinary sword with that money!

And don't forget, a sword's blade gets thinner and thinner every time it is sharpened! So rather than wasting one gold coin to sharpen the Holy Sun Blade, which would make its blade thinner and thus more susceptible to breaking, I'd rather kill those undead creatures with my bare teeth!

Although, biting undead creatures is rather inelegant-not to mention difficult. So I have no choice but to spend that one gold coin and buy an ordinary sword instead.

Now I may have been grumbling here for quite some time, but I've actually already exchanged a few blows with the Death Knight. Every 'clang' as our swords clash causes me to wince internally, for unless one weapon was significantly better than the other, each hit with the other's sword is one more nick in my sword's blade. Should there be too many nicks, I'll have to send it in to the blacksmiths, and there goes another silver coin……

If it weren't for the black flames covering the knight's sword, I would have preferred to block him with my own body. After all, there are plenty of priests in the Hall of Light, and I could just ask them to heal me for free!

However, I do think it's suspicious that I have yet to be defeated by the Death Knight. Is it that the legendary Death Knight is actually not as strong as they are rumoured to be?

Or is it that I've been getting stronger without being aware of it? …… I think I better not get my hopes up.

Just a few days ago during one of our spars, I was defeated by the Judge Knight in just three moves. If I were to claim that I'm getting stronger, I think even the Death Knight with his brain half rotted away would never believe me!

Or maybe, this Death Knight I'm fighting is not really a Death Knight, but merely a 'dead knight' that just so happened to be summoned by a necromancer?

As I look at it up and down, err… His whole body is half rotted away, and his sword skills are pretty lame. It's not like I really want to admit it, but, for me to be able to ramble on and on whilst fighting him and winning…… well, my opponent has to be really horrible at…… er, I mean, is not very skilled at sword fighting.

(Don't joke. If I criticise that his sword skills horrible, then wouldn't that be admitting that my sword skills are equally poor? I admit that my sword skills aren't that good, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it horrible!)

So, this undead creature with 'not very good' sword skills is not a 'Death Knight', but a 'dead knight'.

Oh, forget it! No matter if it is a 'dead' or 'Death' knight, if I don't quickly defeat it, I'll have to spend money on a new sword, which must be avoided at all times.

Even though I admitted that I'm not that skilled with a sword, I am very good at the holy knights' specialty-holy magic. I can guarantee you, one hit and KO for the undead. The only reason I hadn't quickly killed it early on was because……


"Child, even if you encounter a really strong undead creature, remember to battle with it for some time before killing it off with holy magic." My teacher told me.

"But why not kill it off from the start?" inexperienced me could not understand his meaning.

"Child, think about it. Whenever people encounter a monster, it'll take about ten minutes for the monster to show that it is a powerful threat by killing a few people, the crowd would then take up another ten minutes screaming and panicking, and another ten minutes of scrambling about before the knights arrive to rescue them. If you use only three minutes to defeat the monster, how can you expect to please the expectant crowd who spent 30 minutes waiting for a great battle?"

"…… then, how long should I spend fighting the monster, in order to meet the crowd's expectations?"

"Child," said my teacher as he gazed into the distance. "A battle is like a poem, and you are the poet. A battle needs not only a beginning, a middle and an end, but also suspense and uncertainty. Ideally, you would let the enemy beat you into the ground (elegantly, of course). If the enemy has some standards, he would then use degrading words to belittle and demean you, and you then burst out with your hitherto unknown potential……"

"…… unknown potential?"

"Err… burst out with your hidden powers and the Holy Light magic, and elegantly defeat the enemy before dispatching him off to rest in peace. This is a perfect battle."

…… Sounds like an exhausting battle to me.

Since then, I've always hated fighting missions. Those missions are even more exhausting then having to gracefully fall down more than 300 flights of steps. So unless it was an arranged fight with the undead creatures, I would leave all battles to the Judge Knight, who defeats his enemies in one swipe of his blade.

That is why no one bothers to watch the Judge Knight's battles. They are just too boring.


"Sun, careful!"

"Eh?"

Startled by the cry, I suddenly felt a great pain across my back. Before I could turn and see who had sneaked an attack at me, Leaf had sent off the 'dead knight' to rest in peace with an arrow and was turning to look at my back with concern. I could faintly hear him gasp upon seeing my back.

It's not that bad, is it? I, too, worriedly craned my neck around to look at my back, but just couldn't manage to see my injury.

However, I did see Earth summon his specialty-the Earth Shield-behind me. I may hate the guy's guts, but I have to admit that my favourite place to be is right behind his Earth Shield, especially when facing enemies who are too strong for me.

Meanwhile, Frost raised his Holy Frost Blade-which looks uncannily like an icicle-and frowned at the enemy whom he was facing off with. This enemy must be very strong indeed to be able to make Frost frown.

"Sun, don't you hurt, at all?"Ask Leaf worriedly.

I shook my head. Hmph. What? This little injury? After undergoing several months of my teacher's special 'tripping training', I have become a Sun Knight who can still smile as brilliantly as ever-even after falling down 300 flights of steps! This little pain doesn't bother me in the slightest.

"You sure it really doesn't hurt?" Leaf still sounded quite panicked.

I restrained myself from rolling my eyes at him. Darn it, Leaf! Why do you have to force me to open my mouth?

"The God of Light's gentle sunrays has helped to make the pain fade away."

"Sun, you're amazing. To call such an injury only a little painful……" murmured Leaf.

Ignoring Leaf, I turned my attention to the guy who had popped out of nowhere. He looked quite strange. At first glance, he appeared to be human, yet a closer look would tell you that he was definitely not human!

No human would look so 'faded', right?

His hair was a faded brown; his skin looked like it had been drained of its natural colour; even the clothes and armour he was wearing looked to be faded silver. The guy looked ashy grey; as if he hadn't moved for several centuries, and had let a layer of dust accumulate all over him.

When I put it like that, he just sounds like a lazy someone who has not bathed for many years and allowed dust to settle all over him, yet, I'm telling you, he was indubitably not human!

For he had no eyeballs; instead, there were two balls of grey flames where his eyes should have been!

Wow. Even the flames are cutting corners these days, what with their colour all faded away.

The only spot of colour on the guy was his sword. It was a simple and unadorned sword, but its blade gleamed in the sun, a testament to its cutting sharp edge.

Luckily, Frost's Holy Frost Blade is also not to be underestimated. It might look like any old icicle but its sharpness is definitely not that of a mere icicle!

And better yet, the Frost Knight is famous for his sword skills. I believe that even if he were to wield an icicle, he would still be stronger than me……

'Cough'

Anyway, Frost's style of fighting is to attack only after the enemy's first move; that is to say, he could stand there all day without moving, until the enemy eventually grows impatient and attacks, only to find himself dead with a sword run through his body.

So, Frost's battles are pretty boring too, and nobody watches them as there's not much to be seen.

And this time was no exception. The washed out guy grew impatient within a few minutes and attacked Frost with surprising speed. One moment, he was standing there; the next, he was already in front of Frost. It was as if he had never moved, managing to disappear and then reappear in front of Frost.

With such speed, it is no wonder then that he was able to slash at me even with the Earth Knight around…… I had thought that Earth had not helped me on purpose, as payback for earlier.

Thankfully, Frost's was watching the guy and managed to block his attack with his icicle…… I mean, his Holy Frost Blade.

However, this time Frost was unable to dispatch the guy as quickly as usual, and so he began fighting with the guy, both moving at incredible speeds. When I looked closely, I was shocked to see that Frost was actually losing.

I watched on excitedly ……cough… I watched on anxiously as my companion fought with the enemy when a notion suddenly came to me. A powerful knight, washed out appearance, alarmingly strong undead aura…… is he the Death Knight?!

Oh, my! Looks like it really is him.

"Sun, wouldn't you like to take care of your injuries first?" Leaf asked as he stared at my back worriedly.

"Sun is fine." I'm in the middle of watching a fight here! It's rare to see Frost having to fight with an enemy for so long. The injuries can come later.

Although I was watching excitedly, I did still notice that Frost appeared to be having a hard time. Well, he is helping me to fight off that guy, so I should help him out. After all, with Frost defeated and Earth being more of the defence type, and Leaf is a long range fighter, so…… I'd be the only one left to deal with the Death Knight!

My blood would be splattered all over the grounds in eight moves; and I'll be dead in another three!

"Frost! Let me help you!" I shouted, not all worried about him losing his concentration, for Frost has the best concentration among the Twelve Holy Knights.

As the Sun Knight who absolutely loathes the undead, more than half the skills that I've had to learn deal specially with the undead. One of them is the Holy Blessing. With it, I can bless any object, giving it some powers for a period of time and which helps to increase the damage inflicted upon an undead.

I originally thought to bless Frost's Holy Frost Blade, but it was moving too fast for me to lock-on to it.
Never mind, I'll just waste a little more energy and bless Frost himself!

"Praise be the God of Light who shines upon this land, whose bright rays of sun rid the world of darkness and evil…… (etc. etc.)" After reciting a long list of praises for the God of Light, I finally finished with, "……God's blessing!"

Immediately, Frost was enveloped by a glowing golden light and seemed to sparkle. Not only does this light increase the damage inflicted upon the undead, it can also blind your opponent, regardless if they were an undead or not!

"Sun, me too."

The ever kind and nice Leaf had gotten angry, probably because of Frosts increasing wounds. He was standing at my side sternly, and in his hands he held…… Haha! You probably think it's the Holy Leaf Blade, but you're wrong!

It's the Holy Leaf Bow.

I was too lazy to recite the long list of praises of the God of Light, so I simply grabbed the notched arrow, letting the arrowhead pierce my palm. When I let go of it, the arrowhead was covered with my blood.
As the representative of the God of Light, my blood is blessed with the powers of the God and is quite lethal to the undead!

Leaf looked at me, touched, and said, "Sun, I will not waste this sacrifice of your blood."

With the help of the Holy Blessing, Frost was now able to fight with the Death Knight more evenly, for the Death Knight was rather wary of the holy light and this hindered his movements.

However, Leaf decided to put an end to this fight and drew his bow. His eyes glinted as he stared at the enemy and aimed his arrow.

Did I mention that the moment Leaf draws his bow, he instantly switches from a very nice guy to a very scary guy? He can shoot out five arrows in ten seconds, each hitting the bull's-eye every single time.
And that's not all. He can even shoot while running, while jumping, while singing, while turning to look at beautiful women…… all the while shooting at the enemy till he is speared like a porcupine.

I would rather fight with a Death Knight than to fight with Leaf armed with his bow and arrows. If I'm no match for the former, at least I'm still able to run away. As for the latter…… Well, I can't outrun an arrow, can I?

'Shuute'

An arrow flew past me and buried itself into the enemy's chest, just as he was dodging Frost's attack. While an ordinary arrow may have no effect on the already dead Death Knight, an arrow covered in my blessed blood is another thing altogether.

The Death Knight's chest started sizzling-like a fish on a grill-and soon, there was a hollow pit where Leaf's arrow had struck him. No blood flowed from it, but his wounds oozed a sticky black substance.

This seemed to encouraged Frost even more and his attacks speed up, managing to hit the Death Knight on his right arm and causing him to emit an inhuman roar. This hit had cut through the bone and had nearly severed it from the rest of his arm. His arm dangled, connected to the rest of his arm by a few scraps of muscle.

The Death Knight immediately retreated, too fast for Frost to chase after him. But don't forget, we have Leaf on our side!

No matter how fast the Death Knight is, he cannot outrun an arrow!

'Shuute, shuute, shuute. '

It was a testament to how fast he was that the Death Knight was able to dodge the first two arrows, but the third arrow found its mark. It was a pity that the last arrow was not covered with my blood. He couldn't even be bothered to pull it out as it had absolutely no effect on him.

I smiled faintly and grabbed the next arrow's head, covering it with my blood. Then, thinking about it, I dripped my blood onto the remaining arrows in Leaf's quiver. There, even if Leaf missed the next one, he'll have more blessed arrows.

True to form, Leaf began to continuously shoot out arrows. Even though most of them were dodged, at least a few still managed to hit the Death Knight, each causing Death Knight to moan in pain.

"Oh, no! He's running away!" shouted Leaf while shooting out arrows even quicker than before. I could only see a blur of movements and hear the sounds as the arrows fly pass me. As expected of the Twelve Holy Knight's archer, Leaf.

The Death Knight could do nothing against this barrage of raining arrows but dodge them and run further away……

"Sun Knight! I will definitely come back for you!" Shouted the Death Knight when he was a mere speck in the distance…… Hold on, did he just threaten the Sun Knight……me?!

W-wait a minute! What's it got to do with me? I'm not the one who hit you!

As the saying goes, 'Every injustice has its perpetrator and every debt its debtor'. I had only blessed some holy light on Frost and covered some arrows with my blood! The ones who had hit you were them, not me!

I felt like weeping. Not only did I suffer a hit to my back, I somehow managed to unknowingly provoke a real Death Knight. What have I done to deserve all this?!

Frost sheathed his sword and Earth retracted his shield, before turning to look at me with a severe expression. But for some reason, the moment they saw me, they looked stunned.

"Sun, you……are you alright?" asked Earth, looking like he had just seen a ghost.

I emphatically shook my head. Why is everyone looking at me like that?

Frost kept silent, but his gaze dropped from my face to the ground, all the while looking a little dazed. Curious, I followed his gaze and looked down.

Oh, my! Where did all the blood come from? All the bright red looked rather startling-and impressive-against the brown cobbled street.

Hold on! Why are my white pants leg stained red?

"Sun…… are you sure you're OK?" Leaf sounded like he was fighting to hold back his tears.

Don't tell me that…… this whole floor of blood……is mine?

"Leaf…" I said, before realising that how faint my voice was.

"Yes?" Leaf quickly drew closer. I was probably too soft for him to hear.

"Give me a hand……"

"Sun!"

And then, I-extremely elegantly-passed out.

Book 1: Rule 4 – The Sun Knight’s Fourth Rule: “A Sun Knight must have great recovery abilities”

Due to my great injury, my three day vacation was extended to one week. It was rumoured that Leaf had attempted to get a month for me but was denied as the Pope had an important mission for me.

Sigh… Leaf, you really are a nice guy!

I added the soured milk to the paste mixture and mixed it in carefully with the Holy Sun Blade’s scabbard. The scabbard is really useful. As it’s made out of pure gold, I can use it to stir apple wine or my whitening paste without having to worry about it rusting. Actually, it seems to gleam even brighter than before after I wipe it clean!

Hmm… Ok, looks just about done to me; I should be able to apply it on now. After the long fight yesterday, I should have immediately done my whitening routine that night, but was unable to due to me collapsing from excessive blood loss. When I had woken up this morning, I had nearly fainted once more when I saw myself in the mirror. My beautiful creamy white skin had darkened to a honey golden colour!

Oh God! I’m going to have to undergo my whitening routine every night for a whole week before I can get back my previously fair skin.

“S-Sun! What are you doing?” Leaf had suddenly come into my room and was now staring at me in shock.

I’ve just finished whipping up my whitening mask and am going to apply it to my skin…… I thought distractedly, looking down at the scoop of whitening mask I had in my hand.

Why is it that the one time I forget to lock my door, Leaf forgets to knock before entering?!

But luckily I have yet to apply the paste! Or else if Leaf had seen a paste covered me, he would have mistaken me for a rotting undead and immediately drag me off to Judge.

“You’ve just lost a lot of blood yesterday and should be resting! What are you doing out of bed?!” Leaf hurriedly pushed me back into my bed and tucked in the covers around me firmly.

I rolled my eyes at this. Oi! I’m still holding a pile of paste in my right hand!

“Sun, what are you doing with this paste?”Asked Leaf as he stared perplexedly at the paste in my outstretched hand.

Leaf looked at it and thought for a moment, before turning to smile at me, “I understand now. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

……However did he come to this conclusion? Does that pile of paste even look edible?!

“Eating this will make you sick.” Leaf scolded as he swiped the pile of paste from my hand and threw it back into the bowl. He then proceeded to take the bowl away with him as he left. “I’ll get something for you from the kitchens”

Hey, hey! I have no objection to you bringing me something to eat, but where do you think you’re taking my whitening paste to?

That bowl of whitening paste cost me five days’ worth of salary! I had planned to use it for a week of whitening!

When Leaf opened the door, he was startled by the person standing outside and dropped the bowl of paste……

My five days’ salary! Nooooo---!

I leapt from the bed to save it but couldn’t reach it in time……

Luckily, the guy standing outside the door calmly caught the bowl. He was black haired, black-eyed and clothed in black. Giving out a heavy and depressing feeling, the terrible and fearsome Judge Knight stood at my door.

“Judge Knight, may I ask what business you have here?” Asked Leaf warily.

Oh, I forgot to mention this before, but nobody else knows about our friendship but the both of us. On the surface, we still dislike each other and fight like cats and dogs.

It seems that I’m the only one on the Good Warm Faction who actually likes him. The rest are still wary of him and avoid him whenever possible. I guess the brainwashing since we began training at the Holy Temple was rather successful.

The Judge Knight merely stood there expressionlessly, looking rather intimidating. In his uniquely deep voice, he answered, “I’m here to tell Sun about the Pope’s mission for him.”

The nice and kind Leaf could never hope to stand up against the Judge Knight’s daunting presence. He turned to me forlornly, “Sun……”

I had felt rather dizzy after my earlier burst of action, and sank down slowly and gracefully onto my bed. “Leaf Knight, since this is an important mission entrusted to Sun, this Sun accepts it.”

“But you just received such a grievous injury, you should be resting now.” Leaf said apprehensively.

“Please do not worry. This Sun has the God of Light’s protection.”

If you keep on insisting on forcing me to speak, I really will faint in front of you!

“Well……all right.” Leaf said reluctantly, before he closed the door behind him.

Judge followed to lock the door, ensuring that we would not be bothered by anyone else.

He then went directly to the point. “The Pope is rather concerned about this incident. He wants you to secretly investigate the events surrounding the Death Knight. You’re given one week to do this,” he said, as he put down the bowl and sat down.

I knew it! I knew it was too good to be true. There’s no way the Pope would have willingly given me a whole week off……

“Sun does not understand. What kind of mission could not be carried out under the God of Light’s watchful eye?” I asked, resigned. These kinds of secret investigations are always very troublesome.

“I do not know.” Judge replied.

“The appearance of a Death Knight is rather worrying, but why is the Pope getting involved? And why does he want me in particular to investigate it?”

I was rather bewildered. The Pope was a slave driver who exploits every man power available but this is a little too much! My recovery abilities may be pretty good, but I did bleed all over the streets just yesterday. I need at least three days’ rest to get back to my optimum condition. If the matter was so urgent, why he didn’t he assign the task to any one of the other Holy Knights?

“The Pope is not interested in the outcome of the investigation. Once you’ve found the culprit, you need only report it to me,” said the Judge Knight with a severe look in his eyes. This stern look was not directed at me, but at the unknown culprit.

Ahh……The Sun Knight is to secretly investigate the matter, and the Judge Knight is to secretly deal with the criminal. Looks like this matter wasn’t as simple as I thought.

I don’t think you fully understood the situation, so let me explain it to you.

Creating a Death Knight is a very difficult and complicated task. You need two things to create a Death Knight, and one important ‘food’ to sustain and make it grow stronger.

Firstly, you need a high levelled necromancer

A high levelled necromancer isn’t easy to find as a necromancer isn’t a very popular job. In addition, a lot of people discriminate against necromancers, causing them to hide away in very remote places where people can’t find them easily.

Secondly, you need a fresh corpse filled with a great deal of hatred and bitter resentment, and it has to have died with an unfulfilled desire.      

Now, finding a corpse that meets those requirements is even harder than finding the necromancer.

How hard can it be, you ask?

Well, I have to clarify that the corpse’s resentment cannot be some simple thing where he had not had a satisfactory last meal or something. Oh no, to create a Death Knight, you need hatred and resentment for something greater, like a bitter grudge against someone, so strong that he would want to return from the grave!

And lastly, the only thing that could make a Death Knight grow stronger-an impossible obsession!

The more impossible it is, the greater his hatred; and it is his hatred that makes a Death Knight grow stronger and more powerful. When his hatred and resentment reaches a certain level, he will evolve into a Death Lord, and by then we’ll all be in a lot of trouble.

No matter how strong a Death Knight may be, he is only one; but a Death Lord possesses the powers of a necromancer, allowing him to raise an army of the undead, as well as allowing him to increase their skills with magic.

In short, the birth of a Death Lord must never be allowed to happen, or it’ll spell great disaster for all of us.

Now, how to kill a Death Knight? The easiest method would be to defeat it before burning it till nothing remains.

The second method is to find out his grievances and obsession. Help him to get his revenge, help him to achieve his obsession, and he would finally be at peace and be able to move on to the next life on his own.

The second method may sound more humane and the ‘right thing to do’, but generally it is easier to just defeat it.

Back to the story:

“Why is the Pope so concerned about this Death Knight?” I asked curiously. What could have caused the Pope’s conscience to rear its head and make him interested in a Death Knight’s past grievances? I am sure even the God of Light was surprised!

Judge looked at me strangely and said, “I heard that during the entire fight, the only thing the Death Knight had said was that ‘he’ll come back for you’, is that right?”

That’s right, I nodded. He did say that…… suddenly, I understood what Judge was getting at!

Usually, a Death Knight would only appear around one person-the person whom he has a grudge on, or else someone who was connected with his obsession……

“I’m under suspicion?” I asked, so stunned that I forgot to speak praises of the God of Light.

The Judge Knight nodded solemnly.

“I didn’t kill him! I don’t even know him!” I protested.

Judge merely nodded and said, “Then find out the truth and clear your name. But you’d better get a move on it; people are beginning to suspect you.”

~O~O~O~

I’m pretty sure I could become a Death Knight if I died right now.

I’m filled with such great resentment!

First of all, I was attacked by the Death Knight and had bled all over the streets. Then I get a week’s holiday, only to find out that I would be using it to investigate a murder case. Worst of all is that I find myself the greatest suspect for the murder!

I had originally planned to apply my whitening mask and sleep for three days before enjoying the rest of my holiday. But how can I sleep anymore when I am the prime suspect for a murder?!

The moment Judge left my room; I staggered up and begun preparing to leave. A one week deadline to solve a murder case is already asking for a lot, but it is even harder still to solve a Death Knight’s murder. I don’t even know how long the guy had been dead for, before coming back as a Death Knight!

So even though I felt weak enough to collapse at any time, I still dutifully dragged myself out of the Holy Temple and began my investigation…… Should I die from carrying out this investigation, I swear I’ll come back as a Death Knight and seek my revenge upon that Death Knight!

I pulled on a cloak and strapped on my Holy Sun Blade…… Who knows when the Death Knight might come looking for me? It’s best to bring it along with me, just in case.

I had thought of riding a horse but decided against it when I realised how dizzy I was. I’d only get dizzier atop a horse. If I were to slip from the horse’s back in my current conditions, I’d surely die.

So walking it is. I just pray that I don’t collapse in the middle of my investigation.

To avoid any unnecessary distractions, I pulled up my hood to conceal my face, and slowly left the Holy Temple. A lot of people went around me impatiently, giving me a ‘do you think yourself a tortoise? Why the hell are you walking so slowly for?’ look.

I was feeling too weak to bother about anyone and merely continued on slowly. The further I walked, the quieter my surroundings grew, as busy shops bustling with people slowly gave way to poorer housing areas. The noisy streets grew less and less crowded until all that remained were a few drunkards lying about and the occasional person going about their business.

“Oh, ho—What a pretty cloak! Mister, are you looking for your missing wife?” sniggered a couple of drunkards.

I walked past them slowly step by step, neither speeding up nor slowing down, until I reached the darkest and most rundown part of the street and stopped in front of a house that looked rather inhabitable.

I kicked open the door and swept into the house while yelling angrily, “Damn corpse! Where are you! Come out here! I’ve been greatly inconvenienced by you!”

There were only a few pieces of broken furniture inside; and covering every inch of surface and more were layers upon layers of cobweb. If one had simply rushed in, they would have gotten wrapped up in all the cobwebs until they become a giant cocoon.

No one could have been living here, not even a stray dog.

But I know for a fact that this was merely an illusion spun by a necromancer to hide from the prejudiced public.

“Dead corpse! So you refuse to come out?” I slowly reached out a beautiful white hand from within the folds of my cloak….. Shit! It’s a golden coloured hand.

Sob…… I’ve turned into a honey golden coloured Sun Knight!

No, forget about it for now. I have a necromancer to draw out. Without reciting any spells, holy light began gathering in my hand, growing stronger and stronger until its soft white glow illuminated the whole house.

Not that I’m bragging or anything, but there aren’t many priests who can gather so much holy light without needing to recite a spell. Other than the Pope and his cardinals, only a handful of priests can achieve this feat.

While teaching me magic, my teacher once remarked, “Child, you are perfectly suited for a priest.”

“Really?” I had asked happily, cheered up by this praise. I had been rather discouraged about my dismal sword skills, you see.

“Yup. If you had joined the Hall of Light, you would definitely have become one of the strongest popes ever!”

My eyes sparkled at this as I dreamed about the fame and glory of the strongest pope ever……

“But since you had joined the Holy Temple instead, you will just have to settle for being a very weak Sun Knight.”

‘A man fears choosing the wrong career, while a woman fears marrying the wrong man.’ This saying is quite true. A single uninformed choice had changed my fate from becoming the strongest pope to  becoming the weakest knight. How I regretted my choice. For as a young boy, I had foolishly fallen for the glamour of a knight; leaping at the chance to wear cool armour and wave about a sword.

It is only now when I am more experienced that I realise what a great career being a priest is!

As a knight, I have to spend money my sword, taking it in to be sharpened. I have to spend money on a good set of armour, as well as having to pay to have it fixed whenever an enemy takes a swing at it.

But if I were a priest, I won’t have to lug about a sword, or spend money on it. Even though priests have to buy a magic staff too, but with my superb abilities at calling up holy light, even a broken tree branch is sufficient for me.

Furthermore, as a priest I won’t need to wear armour. Even though priest have to buy a set of priest’s robes too, as I said earlier-my abilities at calling up holy light can more than make up for a lack of them. I would be fine even wearing a scrap piece of cloth.

God had gifted me with the all the talents necessary for a priest, yet I stupidly chose to become a knight. And even worse, I cannot quit this job and can only continue to be the Sun Knight until my retirement, or the day I die, whichever comes first……

“Sun! Sun!” the shouts finally drew me from my lamenting.

I jerked my head up and saw a little black shadow jumping about while desperately shouting out my name. I quickly released the holy light.

“Oh, oh! It hurts!” The little shadow crouched in a corner of the room while sobbing pitifully.

The whole house looked different, for my holy light had broken the necromancer’s illusion spell. The numerous cobwebs have disappeared, leaving behind a clean looking house, but……

Pink! Pink, pink, pink! Everything was pink coloured!

There was no need to set the illusion spell to hide the fact that a necromancer was living here.

The walls were pink; the tables and chairs were pink; the bed was pink; even the dolls and stuffed toys filling the house to the brim were pink coloured. Nobody would believe that a necromancer lived here!

The dark and debilitated house, filled with dirty cobwebs had looked even more suited to a necromancer than this pink house!

“Sun……” The little black shadow tugged at my cloak shyly.

I looked down—that’s right-the necromancer only reaches up to my waist—I glared down at it fiercely.

The shadow folded into its self and sniffled softly at my glare.

“What are you crying for? You’re a necromancer!” I looked at the little shadow disbelievingly. “If anyone has the right to cry, it should be me! Not only was I slashed at and bleeding all over the streets, people suspect me of doing unspeakable acts of evil, as I’m the only person the Death Knight has mentioned.”

“Well, you probably did do it……” the shadow muttered quietly. But not quietly enough.

“What. Did. You. Say?!” I clenched my teeth and slowly picked it up……

~O~O~O~

A handsome young man with honey golden skin sat on a pink recliner, surrounded by pink. On his lap sat an adorable little girl with large soulful eyes and beautiful golden curls.

But if you were to look closely at her, you would realise that her skin was pink coloured! How shocking and creepy……

“So, corpse, are you saying that you don’t know about the corpse’s history?” I asked with a frown.

“Hey! Don’t keep calling Pink corpse! Pink is called Pink!” The pink coloured girl complained as she licked her lollipop, but pouted when I glared at her and explained. “Pink had only went to the execution grounds as usual to buy back a corpse. The last time, Sun had requested for a better undead, so Pink had spent more money this time and got a fully intact corpse……I didn’t know that that corpse would have such strong resentment and obsession that it became a Death Knight.”

Pink tilted her head at me cutely and said, “And coincidentally his obsession seems to be Sun!”

“But I don’t even recognise that guy!” I shouted irritated. I have never seen that guy before in my life, why would his obsession be me?

I did not know if Pink believed me or not, as she merely looked down and concentrated on her lollipop.

I knitted my eyebrows and asked, “You said you bought the corpse from an execution site? Is it a criminal?”

“I don’t think so.” Pink looked back up at me with an experienced look in her eyes…… She might like pretending to be a little girl, but who knows how old she really was.

“You don’t think so?” I asked her perplexed. “Are not all those sent to the execution sites criminals?”

Pink looked at me in contempt and laughed, “Yes, on the surface! But I’ll tell you something I learned from years of buying corpses. It is a simple matter to get rid of an unwanted body at execution sites for just a little bit of money.”

“Really? And how can you tell if they were criminals or not?” I asked, wondering if I should mention this to Judge and ask him to investigate this matter.

“Idiot!” Pink laughed condescendingly. “Criminals are executed by hanging till death. While all the corpses I’ve bought have rope marks around their necks, it is easy to tell the criminals from those who are not by checking to see if their cervical spines are broken. Those without a broken neck had not died from hanging, but by other means.”

“And how did the Death Knight die?”

I decided to focus on clearing my name first, and think about the execution grounds later.

Pink tilted her head to one side cutely and thought for a moment before replying. “Tortured to death. His body was covered with scars. He must have been tortured for a very long time before dying from the torture.”

Tortured to death…… I could feel a few chills going down my back.

“But Sun……” Pink suddenly looked at me in admiration. “I never knew you shared the same hobby as me. We could have a discussion next time and exchange ideas about torture. I’ve never tortured a person till he could have enough resentment to become a Death Knight before.”

Upon hearing this, I grabbed Pink by the shoulders and gave her a hard shake. “To hell with your discussions! I’ve told you already, I don’t know that guy at all!”

After being shaken by me, Pink’s eyes looked to be on the verge of falling out. I quickly slapped my hand over them, popping them back into their sockets with a ‘pop’. I had no desire to see eyeballs falling out of their sockets.

“I understand. Pink does not know those tortured by Pink either!” Pink smiled at me knowingly and winked.

Why you…… Die you little…… But wait, she’s already dead……

This evil little necromancer actually believed that I had tortured that Death Knight.

“Which execution grounds did you buy the corpse from?”

“The one north west of the city.”

“Ahh… The one furthest from here…” Looks like I have another long journey ahead of me.

I resignedly stood up and pushed away my longing to collapse onto the pink bed just a few steps away from me…… How I wish to lie there, burying my face into the pink cake pillow on the bed, and sleep for three days and three nights.

However, I have to crawl over to the corpse-filled execution site and question its corrupted keepers about the corpse’s real history.

Just thinking about it makes me feel even more tired……

I pushed away the pink corpse from my lap and slowly got up, before slowly making my way over to the door……

“Sun.”

I turned around and looked at Pink-who was leaning against one of the pink walls and licking her bright pink lollipop.

She batted her eyes at me and said, “You should remember that Pink keeps her word. I would gladly accept you as my apprentice at any time. Even the Holy Temple and your teacher, the strongest Sun Knight in history, cannot force me to hand over my apprentice.”

I stared at her blankly, uncertain of her meaning. Was she offering to protect me?!

The corpse might be a little weird-OK, a lot weird-but she is definitely a loyal friend.

I smiled at her weakly and waved goodbye; the little girl didn’t say another word either and merely waved her lollipop at me happily.

Book 1: Rule 5 – The Sun Knight’s Fifth Rule: “Save up, or else you’ll have a very bleak retirement ahead of you”

I was not kidding when I said that the execution grounds North West of the city was really, really far. To avoid me joining the rest of the corpses at the execution grounds when I finally reach the grounds, I decided to part with my hard-earned money and rent a carriage.

I could have gone back to the Holy Temple and asked for one of their carriages, but I would then have to put on my Sun Knight act-smiling, praising the God of Light, always elegant and perfect……

Seeing as I can’t even bear to smile in my current condition, I’ll just have to fork out the money for the carriage. Even though it pains me to do so, all my preciously hoarded savings would do me no good if I were to die now, would it?

At the carriage rentals, I chose the cheapest carriage-hopefully it’ll last me to the execution grounds before falling apart; and hired the cheapest coachman-an indifferent old man who couldn’t care less who his passengers were.

The carriage stunk like a whole basketful of rotten eggs, but I persevered. I sat in a corner and made myself comfortable. Soon, I began nodding off to the carriage’s gentle swaying ……

‘Bump!’

I jerked awake with an expressionless look on my face; a large bump now graced my forehead.

The carriage had braked sharply, causing my head to knock into the walls so hard that the flimsy wall had snapped broken.

I sat there considering the idea of paying out a small sum of money to the keepers of the execution grounds, and adding the coachman to the ranks of corpses ‘dead by means other than hanging’.

“I’m sorry, but a few knights suddenly appeared ahead of us; I had to brake sharply to avoid crashing into them,” apologised the coachman, not sounding apologetic at all. 

‘Knights?’ I thought as I cautiously rubbed the swelling on my forehead.

There are no real differences between holy knights and ordinary knights. Both carry weapons and ride horses; both wear armour; both are cannon fodder in battles; both are the first in a team to die…… cough! I mean, both use their bodies to shield their teammates from attacks, nobly sacrificing their selves to save others; sparing no effort to help out other innocents even at the threat of death.

 The only distinction between the two is that the former pledge themselves to the Gods, while the latter pledge themselves to other humans. Because the holy knights serve the Gods, they have additional powers gifted to them by the Gods. For example, holy knights have the ‘self-recovery’ ability, which allows them to recover from their injuries much quicker than ordinary humans.

For instance, just yesterday I had bled out a lot of blood onto the streets, yet I am strong enough to get out of bed the next day! If I were an ordinary knight, I probably would have died on the streets there and then!

While the ordinary knights don’t get any special powers from the gods, they do get much higher wages-at least two to three times more than holy knights!

As long as an ordinary knight is able to survive till his retirement age, he should be able to live off his savings comfortably for the rest of his old age.

Whereas for a holy knight…… if one does not privately find other means of supplementing one’s income, as well as scrimping and saving wherever they can, even the Twelve Holy Knights would barely have any money at their retirement. We would have to continue working pitifully even well into our old age, for the other option would be to starve to death and join the God of Light.

(Quietly: For example, the strongest Sun Knight in history-my teacher, is now working as an adventurer, competing for quests with the younger generation and stealing from monsters and thieves……cough! I mean, he is setting an example for the younger generation and serving justice to the evil.)

Before leaving the Holy Temple, my teacher had solemnly left behind this advice, “Child, if you don’t want to have to work as a priest after your retirement (too dangerous for you to work as a knight, your sword skills are too lousy), you better have a good retirement plan to avoid such a bleak future.”

Thinking about his parting wisdom, I started feeling terribly guilty for the money I had just spent. I should have just walked. I believe that with my self-recovery abilities, I should have been able to at least make it to the execution grounds.

While in the midst of lamenting my unwisely-spent money, I heard noises coming from outside. The sound of trotting horses and the clanging of armour intermixed with shouts.

“What’s happening?” I asked impatiently, as I looked out of the carriage.

I was just in time to catch sight of the fleeing coachman leaping from the carriage and swiftly running away, abandoning me behind.

‘Right! Just you wait! I’ll definitely drag you off to the Judge Knight and sue you for abandoning the Sun Knight!’

I ‘prayed’ for him to join the God of Light-sooner rather than later. But the moment I turned around, I could understand why he had ran off so quickly, for standing in front of the carriage were three tall knights, not looking the least friendly.

“Go back!”

Although they, too, were stunned at the sight of the fleeing coachman, their leader had managed to quickly regain his wits and shout at me.

I frowned at that. As the leader of the Twelve Holy Knights, hardly anyone would dare to yell at me. With the exception of my teacher, the Pope and that ignorant fat king, I had never been yelled at by anyone else before.

‘The fallen tiger is harassed by a mere dog.’ To think that I, the fallen Sun Knight am now harassed by three lowly knights! ‘You three better watch your mouths, or I’ll……get Judge to beat you up!’

Hey, don’t give me that look! Try nearly bleeding to death and see how strong you are the next day!

My sword skills might not be very good……OK, they’re terrible-but remember that this is in comparison with the rest of the Twelve Knights and my dear teacher! If you were to compare me with the average knight, my sword skills are actually pretty…… average.

And don’t forget, my sacrifice of higher wages entitles me to a bunch of blessings and abilities. With all of that taken into account, I should be about the equivalent of a strong knight!

And when you add my superb self-recovery abilities, I should be even stronger!

But frankly, after bleeding so much blood, I have hardly enough strength to draw my sword, much less take on three powerful-looking knights.

So, I could do nothing but get out of the carriage, jump into the driver’s seat and meekly turn the carriage around.

“At least you’ve still got that much sense!” Upon seeing me turn around and leave, the three knights did not hassle me any further and merely turned to leave in the opposite direction.

I quietly noted that they, too, were going in the direction of the execution grounds.

When they were finally some distance away, I quickly jumped down from the carriage and hid in the bushes while the horse continued pulling the carriage onwards. As long as I walk within the bushes, those knights shouldn’t notice me there.

I was very curious as to why these knights would want to visit the execution grounds. Something smelled fishy. If this mystery happened to be linked to the murder case I’m investigating, then all the better for me. Even if they were unrelated, I could still report their suspicious activities to Judge and let him investigate further.

So, I quickened my pace to catch up with the knights, going at a full sprint. I have a feeling that my wounds are going to get worse from this. But it’s OK, my self-recovery abilities are second to none in the Holy Temple; I should be fine.

No matter how grievous the injury, I’ve still always been able to get out of bed the next day. Even if my internal organs had spilled out, my heart had been injured and my lungs had difficulty drawing in air; within three days I’ll be able to get out of bed for breakfast and ready to apply my whitening mask once more.

But there is a downside to recovering quickly-ever since the Pope found out about my exceptional recovery abilities, my sick leave has become shorter than anyone else’s……

After cursing that old Pope in my mind for a while, I finally reached the execution site. The grounds were a simple earthen ground with a small wooden building off to one side. In the middle of the execution grounds stood one lonely gallows. The noose hanging from it was merely a piece of rope tied into a loop at its end; but it was still effectively deadly.

This execution site is one of the oldest and most run down there is. No criminal accused of the more serious crimes or criminals of importance would have been executed here. Only some unimportant thief that no one cares about would be hanged here.

But this is Sprouting Leaf, the capital city of Forgotten Echo, as well as the centre of the faith of the God of Light. If you were to talk a stroll in the city, you’d see royal knights making their rounds on one street, pass by several holy knights on their patrol in the next street, and on the next one, you’d see a group of priests spreading the teachings of the God of Light to the people. Moreover, the terrifying Judge Knight would patrol the streets daily at random times! A staggering total of 1056 criminals of various crimes have been caught in the past ten years!

Do you think any thieve would dare to rob and steal in this city?

So because thieves are a dying breed within the city, this execution site has not seen much business for quite some time.

But it is precisely because this place is so deserted that a lot of suspicious dealings have been going on around here. To think that the bodies of non-criminals would be dumped here! A dead body means that a crime has been committed. Looks like the capital city isn’t as safe and crime-free as the Holy Temple believed.

I chuckled darkly. Wait until I tell Judge about this. That cold face of his would become even colder as he sweeps the whole city for hidden transgressions and crimes.

The site was empty but for the three horses secured at one end. ‘Looks like the three knights had made it here before me.’

The old and decrepit building was lighted however, and several figures could be seen through the windows.

I blessed upon myself two abilities-Holy Blessings-which increases my defence, and Divine Wings-which increases my speed-and approached the building, taking great pains to avoid being seen from one of the windows.

“……the corpse?” A voice demanded fiercely from within.

“Sir…… there are many……erm…… which…… do you mean?” This voice sounded weak and frail, likely belonging to an old man. Even with me focussing all my attention on their conversation, I still missed out a few bits of it.

However, I dared not step any closer and instead hid behind several tall trees. Even with the weak blessings my condition was still very poor. I might be discovered if I got any closer.

 “……blue eyes,” said one of the knights impatiently.

The frail elderly voice floated over, sounding to be on the verge of tears. “Sir, I would never be so disrespectful as to look at a dead person’s eyes!”

“Gold hair-no-more like brown, about 23 years old, rather handsome face.”

I frowned upon hearing this, a feeling of dread welling up inside me.

Blue eyes, brown hair, 23 years old…… the same age as me. Sigh, to have died at such a young age, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Death Knight felt some resentment about this.

“It’s already been buried……”

“You dare lie to me!”

That shout was followed by a string of punching and crying sounds, until the old voice said even more weakly, “……sold two days ago.”

“Sold to whom?”

“A man with a little girl.”

My eyes gleamed at this. Praise the God of Light! These three knights are connected to the Death Knight.

‘A man with a little girl?’ I scoffed. It should be, ‘a little corpse with a big corpse’! It must have been Pink and her ‘cleaner’, the undead she specially summoned to clean her house.

“What did the man look like?” the knight asked furiously……

‘Wrong! You should have asked: ‘what did the little girl look like?’’

“Hood was pulled down……I couldn’t see……”

“You damn idiot……!”

“Kill him. He’s a liability to us.” A new voice said.

“Please have mercy!” Pleaded the frail voice.

My expression immediately darkened. As the Sun Knight, I can’t just stand by while someone is being killed right in front of me…… can I?

But with my current condition, I can’t do anything to help. I’d only get myself killed too!

‘To rescue or not to rescue…… hmm……’

“Please…… please stop-” the pitiful sobs were heartlessly ignored as kicks and punches rained down upon the weak and frail body.

‘You idiots! I’ve been contemplating for such a long time, yet you haven’t killed off the guy, what’s wrong with you? Why are you using your fists when you can just slice off his head with one blow?!

‘Don’t you know that procrastinating with these things only invite heroes of justice to interfere? Especially this Sun Knight who has to uphold justice!’

Glancing down to make sure that I still had the blessings, I crept towards the window and peeked in. Inside, two of the knights were beating up an old man while the third stood by, unaffected by the scene playing out in front of him. ‘The boss gives the orders, and the grunts do the work.’ So logically, this guy should be the leader.

Softly, I muttered a spell. I may be a holy knight, but I am really more suited to becoming a priest, or even a sorcerer. Actually, anything would have suited me better than being a knight! ‘Sob, sob…’

My teacher would often sigh exasperatedly, “Why is it that you can learn a magic spell after seeing it just once; yet no matter how hard I try to teach you, no matter how many times I show it you, you can never get a sword move correct?!”

To avoid unnecessary gossip-like saying that I’m not in the right career or something, I rarely use magic in front of others. But these are extreme circumstances; moreover, I don’t intend to reveal my true self, so it should be fine……

“Paralysis!”

I cast a paralysis spell on the leader before bursting through the window and kicking him in the back. Straight away, he slumped down without a sound.

‘Hey, looks like I can become a pretty good assassin too!’

After kicking him down, I drew his sword and turned to face the remaining two knights. I can’t draw my Holy Sun Blade and reveal myself, now can I? Only a blind idiot wouldn’t be able to guess at who I am if I were to swing around my Holy Sun Blade.

I dodged their attacks, muttered another spell, and flung out my arm at them. The grease spell caused the floor to turn slick and smooth, thus tripping one of the knights. I immediately stomped on his leg, breaking his calf.

Ha! A knight with a broken leg is no match for even a helpless priest. With such heavy armour on, they cannot hope to stand up again on a broken leg.

“A mage swordsman!” The other knight cried out, alarmed.

‘A mage swordsman? Puh-leze.’ I rolled my eyes at him. ‘I’m merely a Sun Knight who had accidently learned elementary spells.’

But having defeated two of them so easily boosted my confidence. I guess these three aren’t high levelled knights. Good news for me.

The last knight looked at me in fear, not daring to get too close.

I could understand his situation. Mage swordsmen are either very strong or very weak. Since I had quickly felled their strongest member and another in such a short time, he probably thinks that I’m one of the strong ones.

All of a sudden, I felt a very strong aura from behind me. Whipping around, I saw the leader that I had kicked down earlier slowly getting up, his expression stormy. Even more alarming is the aura drifting off of him- Frenzy. Only knights of the highest level have Frenzy.

“You sneaky, disgraceful scumbag!” He roared. He reached to draw his sword only to find it empty as the sword had been stolen by me. He grew even angrier at this.

This guy’s a high levelled knight! No wonder he was only wearing light armour, unlike the other two who were arrayed in full armour.

‘Frenzy’ is something that envelopes one’s body and it is better than armour. Not only can it block an enemy’s blows, it doesn’t hinder one’s movements, and doesn’t weigh a thing, thus allowing for greater speed and agility. It’s great both for defence and offence!

However, not everyone can attain ‘Frenzy’, as only a high levelled knight can achieve that state.

Back then, my teacher had attempted to teach me to attain ‘Frenzy’. He had tried every method in the book-and many ways not in it- demonstrating it to me at least 20 times a day…… in the end, I still couldn’t get it. Instead, I had accidently learned Holy Blessing while recording beautiful female priests.

It was only until after the title of Sun Knight was passed on to me that I had finally learned how to release Frenzy, but it was a very close call. I had nearly died in that mission and only the accidental triggering of my Frenzy had managed to save me.

But still, I prefer using Holy Blessing over Frenzy. It is easy for me to gather holy light and summon the Holy Blessing to wrap around me; but when trying to summon my Frenzy, one time out of three times I will fail to successfully summon it. Furthermore, my Frenzy is so weak that I dare not entrust my life to it. It’s just easier to use Holy Blessing and forget about Frenzy.

Sneaking a peek at the high levelled knight’s Frenzy, it doesn’t seem that that his Frenzy is at all weak.

“Grease!” I flung out once more.

Unfortunately, my technique was not as successful this time. It failed to fell the high levelled knight, as he and his light armour did not weigh enough to make him slip, although he did stagger for a moment. Instead, this use of magic merely seemed to incite greater fury. “You despicable scum!” He roared once more, as he grabbed a table and threw it at me.

He probably expected me to stand my ground and slice the table in half, before battling it out with him in a fierce battle of The Knight vs. The Mage Swordsman!

However…… I dodged it while throwing out a smoke spell, creating a smokescreen to hide me from their sight.

Using this opportunity while they are momentarily blinded, I grabbed the wounded old man, vaulted out the window and rushed to the tied horses. With a swing of my sword, I cut loose the horses and slapped two of them on the rump, startling them into dashing away. I then hurriedly swung up onto the last remaining horse while pulling the old man up in front of me, and hurriedly rode away.

Suddenly, a sword was thrown out of the broken window towards us.

If I tried to dodge this sword I would definitely fall of the horse; if I fall off, the knights would catch up to me in no time and there’s no way I can get away easily!

Even right now, my Holy Blessing is growing thinner and weaker. I have no hope of winning against them, much less when one of them is a high levelled knight.

Right, no dodging then!

‘I should be alright with the Holy Blessing and my Holy Healing……’

‘Fzzz’

The sword had managed to cut through my Holy Blessing shield! I paled and tilted to one side, letting the sword slice through my right upper shoulder and just barely missing my heart. My shoulder immediately started spurting out blood.

Fortunately, the sword had not harmed the horse and soon, the horse’s long strides had taken us away from the execution grounds and put some distance between the knights and us.

I used a healing spell to stop the bleeding from my wound while thinking about the knight I had fought earlier…… I believe I would have a hard time with him even if I were fully recovered. I had only managed to kick him down that first time because of the element of surprise, and had gotten away from him only with the help of magic.

Such a strong knight; and from his shouts of ‘despicable!’ and ‘disgraceful!’ I could tell that he is no ordinary knight. For him to care so much about honour, he is probably in the service of a noble.

‘But for such an honourable knight to secretly dispose of bodies at execution grounds…… It just doesn’t seem to fit!

‘Unless he was carrying out orders from his lord……’

Ergh!

I suddenly experienced a dizzy spell. Looking down, I noticed that my wound had reopened and was bleeding once more. Well, that’s normal. Riding a horse would jar open any wound.

‘I better hurry back to the Holy Temple and get healed up properly.’ Tearing a strip of cloth from my cloak, I simply wrapped it around my wound, before focussing on getting back to the city.

Upon reaching the city gates, I let the old man off after healing his wounds, advising him, “If you value your life, you’ll leave this place and get as far away from here as possible, do you hear me?”

The old man looked much better after receiving my healing. He hurriedly nodded with terror before limping away.

I left the horse behind and slowly made my way into the city. That horse belonged to those knights. If I were to bring it back to the Holy Temple, someone might find out about today’s events. Furthermore, I’m currently bleeding from my shoulder. It would attract too much attention if I were to ride the horse in the city. I don’t want to have to deal with questions from the patrolling guards.

With a hand pressing against my wound, trying to staunch the bleeding, I slowly entered the city. The guards at the city gates frowned at me but did not stop and question me. They’ve probably seen too many wounded adventurers before. And anyways, there are plenty of watchful guards and knights within the city; who would dare to stir up trouble here?

‘I really have lost too much blood in two days,’ I thought ruefully as I resumed my ‘tortoise crawl’ and crawled through the city.

Even though I hadn’t done anything, a troop of patrolling guards kept eyeing me suspiciously. I guess a bleeding person in a cloak and hood is rather suspicious. They probably think that I might stir up trouble; or collapse onto the ground and die.

Keeping a wary look on the approaching guards, I swiftly entered a side alley where I could see three holy knights chatting with one another.

As I neared the trio, I reached out an arm towards the nearest one who had his back turned towards me. This action alarmed the troop of guards as well as the other two holy knights who were facing me, and they quickly pulled back the third holy knight who was still unaware of what was happening.

…… I had only wanted to pat his shoulder to catch his attention……

“May the God of Light bless you, my brothers,” I said loudly, only now realising how weak I actually sound.

“Who are you?” The holy knights looked at me baffled, frowning at all the blood covering my figure.

Raising my hood slightly and letting them catch a glimpse of my face, I asked, “Do you recognise me?”

The three holy knights stared at me with wide eyes. “You-you’re the Sun-” stammered the youngest one.

“Shhh!” I pressed a finger to my lips and winked at them mischievously with a relaxed smile…… Although I really wish to collapse there and then, I forced myself to maintain my Sun Knight image.

The three of them just stood there staring at me with mixed emotions. They were about to salute me before remembering that I didn’t want to reveal my identity. When their eyes flickered down to my blood soaked figure, they widened in consternation and looked at me worriedly.

“I need someone to escort me back to the Holy Temple. Would you be willing to spare some of your time to do so?” I asked. This time, my speech was much simpler and easier to understand, without any of the usual praises for the God of Light peppered in. I just want to get back to my room and sleep!

“And another thing, those guards seem to have some misunderstanding towards me. Could one of you help to explain it to them? But please remember not to reveal my identity.”

The holy knights nodded cautiously, and one of them immediately went over to the guards. I have no idea what he told them, but the guards accepted it and nodded to him before leaving.

The youngest holy knight in front of me nervously asked, “D-do you want to heal your wounds first? I know some healing spells…… Ah!” He suddenly seemed to realise something and stopped.

“Please. And thank you,” I smiled.

Upon hearing my acceptance, the three knights looked at me in disbelief. I could guess at the reason for their surprise. I’m quite famous for my mastery of holy spells; so it is quite hard to believe that I would need someone’s help in healing……

The holy knights kept their questions to themselves and quietly escorted me to the Holy Temple, but only after the youngest had healed me a little with what limited spells he knew.

With the escort of the three holy knights I reached the Holy Temple in no time at all. After thanking them, I turned and started climbing up the steps to the Holy Temple.

“Sun- Are you sure you’ll be alright?” The youngest knight called out worriedly.

I took a deep breath before turning to them with my most radiant smile. “Please to do not worry, this Sun will be fine.”

But despite my reassurances, the three holy knights had let out a startled gasp and continued looking after me even more anxiously. I couldn’t understand why.

I pulled down my hood as I neared the entrance to the Holy Temple. The knight standing guard immediately saluted me and I successfully entered the Holy Temple. Swiftly, I walked towards my room, calling out internally, ‘I’m coming, my bed……’

“Sun!”

I stopped at this call, but before I could turn around, I was dragged off by the arm. I could do nothing to stop it as I was already very weak.

“What happened to you? You’re covered in blood, is it the enemy’s? Haha, you must have really beaten them to the ground!” said the person bluntly. He was very strong, as he was all but dragging my entire weight with him. He had red hair, a loud voice and a tall figure.

This is one of the Twelve Holy Knights-the Blaze Knight. He is a straightforward and reckless person, with a fiery temper to match his flame-red hair. Like me, Storm and Leaf, he is also part the Good Warm Faction.

‘Blaze…… please let me go and let me walk on my own! I’m very close to fainting!’

“Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you why I was looking for you.” said Blaze as he dragged me forward, not even once looking back at me. On both sides, passing holy knights were dropping documents, cups and even valuable swords onto the ground. I must look extremely weak and pale.

If this continues on, my Sun Knight reputation will be in tatters! So, gathering up every last ounce of strength I had, I weakly reached up and pulled down my hood, covering my face.

“Frost is lying in bed. That Death Knight’s sword seems to have some strange aura surrounding it. They’re saying that it is a ‘Death Sword’ or something like that. Even the Pope isn’t able to suppress the dead aura. They say that only you can get rid of it.”

A dead aura? No wonder! No wonder I’m still so weak. With my excellent recovery abilities I should be doing much better than I am by now. That sword is no ordinary sword. How unfortunate that it had fallen into the hands of a Death Knight.

Blaze dragged me all the way to the Cold Blood Faction’s living quarters, and proceeded to kick open Frost’s door. “I’ve found Sun! So now what do we have to do to save this icy guy?”

The scene within didn’t look as serious as I’d expected. The Frost Knight was lying calmly in bed reading a book, while several high levelled priests stood around discussing about the best way to heal him.

Judge was looking over several official documents from beside Frost’s bed; even while taking care of someone, he’d never waste a second to deal with official matters.

The priests looked up happily at Blaze’s announcement and said, “We only need to drip some of the Sun Knight’s blood on his wound,” they explained. “With his blessed holy blood and some of our purification spells, we should be able to expel the dead aura. The Frost Knight would need to rest for a few days after that, but he should be fine.”

‘Is that so? Then could I have a few days to recover first? Between the two of us, I seem to be the one worse off……’

Ouch! My arm suddenly hurt, and blood started spurting out from the newest wound on my arm.

“That sounds pretty simple. After all, Sun is as hard to kill as a cockroach! Bleeding out a bucket or two of blood should be fine for him.” Said Blaze as he grabbed my shoulder and held my arm above Frost, shaking and sprinkling my blood all over him. Covered with my blood, Frost’s already cold face turn freezing.

The priests hurriedly came forward and started chanting the spells for purification, pouring all their energy into healing Frost…… ‘Hey, hey! Has everyone forgotten that I, too, was slashed at yesterday? And my wound was much deeper than Frost’s! Leave some purification for me too!’

I felt like weeping as I watched them cast purification spell after purification spell. I opened my mouth to protest but no sound came out.

“Sun Knight, you……” Judge appeared to have notice that something was off about me. He looked at me with some hesitation but did not continue.

His hesitation was understandable-after all, we are the Sun Knight and the Judge Knight who are opposing rivals-even though we are secretly friends. It would be inappropriate to openly show concern for me in front of Blaze and all these priests. And anyway, with my recovery skills, I don’t think anyone would believe that I am on the verge of dying……

As the priests cast the purification spells, I could feel my consciousness fading rapidly. ‘Please, anyone! Please catch on to the fact that I might be going to join the God of Light sooner than I expected……’

The last thing I saw before my vision went black was Judge tearing me from Blaze’s grasp and ripping off my hood. He gasped at my face before turning to shout at the priests, but I couldn’t make out what he was shouting.

Oh, Frost had leapt out from his bed! How unusual to see such a panicked expression on his typically expressionless face. Completely opposite to Frost, Blaze had a looked of dazed disbelief on his face.

Oh, I don’t care about that anymore!

It doesn’t really matter if I die or not, right now the only thing I want to do is sleep…… I closed my eyes……

‘Ah, how comfortable. Goodnight, everyone.’

Book 1: Rule 6 – The Sun Knight’s Sixth Rule: “When away from home, you rely on your friends. So make friends, even be it an undead corpse.”

“Sun should be fine, right? His recovery ability has always been the best……”

“Did you not see his face when he collapsed? He looked no better than a dead corpse!”

‘How rude! Who said that?! I’m much better looking than a dead corpse!’

I wanted to flip over, but my body felt so heavy, so I gave up and continued sleeping.

“You grace, will Sun really be alright? But he hasn’t moved in two days……”

‘Oh? I see. I haven’t moved in two days…… No wonder my butt hurts. Why didn’t anyone help to flip me over?! Oh, and what if my trousers were to get creased?! The perfect Sun Knight’s pants getting creased…… how can I let that get out?!’

Fearing that my pants would get even more creased, I wriggled diligently to smoothen it out. But that little move had spent me out of all my energy, and so I fell asleep once more, ignoring the startled cries around me. All the while never once opening my eyes…

“What should we do? Sun has been unconscious for five days now, if this continues, he might die from lack of nourishment……”

“Get out!”

“What?”

“I said, everyone get out!”

Following that order was a lot of outraged cries, fighting sounds, arguing voices, etc. How noisy!

‘Do you guys not see the severely injured patient resting here?! Keep the noise down!’

I flipped over in irritation, turning my back to all the commotion, and continued to sleep……

“Sun! Get up!”

I pressed my face into the pillow and continued sleeping.

“Creus Sun! Get up, right now!”

I suddenly stiffened…… ‘Creus?’

Ahh… It’s been a long time since someone had last spoken my name, I’ve almost forgotten that I was called Creus.

Ever since I officially became the Sun Knight, everyone just calls me Sun. You see, after becoming one of the Twelve Holy Knights, our last names are changed to our individual titles – for example, my last name became Sun. But actually, each of us still has our own names; it’s just that people hardly call us by our real names anymore.

Because I rarely hear their names, I’ve forgotten most of their real names; for instance, I can never remember the Leaf knight’s name…… was it ‘elderberry’? Or ‘strawberry’?

But to call out my full name, looks like Leithe Judge is angry for real. If I don’t get up now, I may never wake up again……

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes and said my first sentence in five days hoarsely, “Will it kill you to let me sleep for just a while longer?”

Judge’s ever stiff expression sagged in relief and he chuckled. He shook his head as if to say, ‘What can I do against you?’ before bringing over a bowl of fish porridge to me. Oh, I see he had remembered to add my favourite herb - parsley!

My stomach rumbled hungrily at that heavenly smell.

Instantly, I bounced out of bed and lunged for the bowl hungrily……

Before I could snatch it over, Judge had moved it away from my reach.

“Leithe Judge!” I cried out mournfully to him.

Judge calmly brought over the bowl while saying, “Take your time and eat slowly. Remember, you’ve only had some glucose drink to sustain you for the past five days. You might get yourself sick if you eat too quickly.”

I took over the bowl and ate slowly to appease him.

“Actually I shouldn’t have added the parsley. You should be eating bland foods that are easy on the stomach,” mumbled Judge as he frowned. “But if I didn’t do so, you’d probably refuse to eat some tasteless porridge.”

‘You really know me all too well! Who would want to eat plain porridge!’

While waiting for me to finish my porridge, Judge took out some official documents and started going through them. ‘Sigh… you sure don’t waste any time, do you?’

After finishing the bowl of porridge and gulping down a whole bottle of water, my hunger and thirst for the past five days was finally satisfied.

Seeing that I’m done, Judge put away the documents and looked at me, waiting.

Knowing what he was silently asking, I told him all about my visit with Pink and the following incidents thereafter.

Of course, no one is supposed to know that the necromancer and I are in cahoots…… oops! Sorry, I mean - that we are acquainted with each other. However, Judge is my best friend and I’ve never hidden anything from him, so naturally he was aware of Pink’s existence.

After listening to my story, Judge kept silent, deep in thought. I, on the other hand, reached down under my bed, searching for something…… I remembered stashing a large chunk of jerky under my bed, so where is it now? Ah - ha! Found it.

I ate the enormous piece of jerky while looking closely at Judge’s expression. His face is usually set in a stern expression - similar to how mine always has a smile on - but when in private, all kinds of expressions would come out. Take for example how I had stuck up my butt in the air while searching under my bed just now. How elegant do you think that was?

Judge looked up with at me with some uncertainty, but the moment he caught sight of me eating the piece of jerky, his expression turned thunderous as he snatched it from me. “Are you crazy?!”

“But I’m really, really hungry…” I pouted at him.

“I’ll get more porridge for you later,” he said unsympathetically, keeping away my jerky instead of giving it back to me.

“I’ve taken a look at the sword you brought back with you,” he said, cutting directly to the point.

I tilted my head in thought, ‘he must be talking about the one I had taken from the knight, back at the execution grounds.’

“And? Have you found out to whom it belonged to?”

“The sword had the Ceylan family’s insignia on it - an orchid. Only a high levelled knight could have wound you like that, and there are not many of them. Within the Ceylan household, there are only three knights who meet these criteria - the Duke of Ceylan’s third son, as well as two other knights pledged to the Ceylan family.”

“But which one was it?” I pressed further. I believe that Judge is capable of finding out almost everything just from examining the sword.

Judge kept silent for a moment before speaking, “The duke’s third son. His allegiance is to the Crown Prince.”

I, too, became silent before asking hopefully, “You sure it’s the duke’s third son and not anyone else?”

The question I really wanted to ask was, ‘is the crown prince really the culprit between all this?’

Only a direct order from their liege could have made a knight who placed such importance on honour do something as despicable as disposing a body in secret. If the duke’s third son’s pledged lord is the crown prince, then there could be no doubt as to who had really tortured the Death Knight.

Judge nodded his head and said, “It couldn’t possibly be the other two knights. One was in another country that day, while the other was patrolling the city. There are many other knights with him that day who could attest to this.”

“The crown prince…… torturing a person to death?” I muttered strangely. This just didn’t seem like something the responsible and kind crown prince would do.

The room suddenly grew quiet and oppressive. If it really was the crown prince, what could we even do about it? Even if there was irrefutable proof that the crown prince was guilty of the crime, could we really send the country’s only heir to the guillotines?

“Outside the temple……” Judge suddenly spoke up haltingly, before stopping.

I looked at Judge. I had thought he was acting rather strangely today.

Usually, when the both of us are alone, he would drop his stern look and smile - although he looks quite funny when he does so. His smiles are quite stiff, you see; I guess it’s because he doesn’t get many opportunities to smile.

But today, he might have smiled a little initially, but it had looked forced. I can tell - it had looked exactly like my smiles.

I looked at him and he looked back at me. A strange atmosphere grew around us, one that I had never before felt between us.

“Damn it……” I raked a hand through my golden hair in frustration before giving him a hard look. “If you’ve got something to say then say it! Don’t try to hide it from me, or else I will no longer acknowledge you in the future.”

Judged hesitated for a moment, but at the dark look in my eyes, he sighed and said, “The whole city’s filled with rumours saying that you had tortured the Death Knight to death.”

I stiffened at this, but Judge continued on. “Because of this the Pope has given us new orders to forget about the investigation and to instead start slandering the Death Knight. We are to announce that he was a criminal of the worst sort who was caught by you, and that when he could not be persuaded to show remorse for his crimes, he was sentence to death by me.

“The reason why he would have a grudge with you was because you were the one who had originally caught him,” said Judge calmly, as if it was only the weather we were talking about and not the slandering of a possibly innocent man.

But this is so obviously a lie!

I was enraged. I do not know if it was anger for the poor Death Knight who has become a victim of circumstances; or perhaps it was because I had been forced to drag myself out to investigate in my weakened state, and nearly killing myself in the process - only to get a notice saying that the investigation was to be discarded!

I felt such great burning anger seething inside of me, threatening to engulf me in its flames; but strangely my limbs felt so cold, freezing even, as I broke out in a cold sweat.

“Calm down,” Judge said in concern when he noticed my state, patting my shoulder comfortingly.

I shoved away his hand violently, this action causing the both of us to freeze for a moment.

He retracted his hand slowly and kept quiet, but I couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out, “Do even you believe that I’m responsible for that knight’s death?”

The Judge Knight stared down dazedly before looking back at me and said, “I believe in proof.”

My face darkened upon hearing this.

Judge elaborated, “Right now, it is possible that the crown prince had killed the Death Knight, before ordering a knight loyal to him to dispose of the body at the execution grounds......”

“But, it could also have been me, isn’t that right?” I interrupted sharply. When Judge didn’t deny my words, I got even angrier and shouted, “After all, the only person the Death Knight has mentioned so far was me! You have only my side of the story of the incident at the execution grounds, and a sword I had brought back with me. I could have made the whole thing up! Perhaps I was thinking of shifting the blame onto the crown prince, and since no one would want to further investigate the crown prince, this case would be closed, isn’t that right, Judge Knight?!”

My chest heaved up and down after my rant. I could feel an ache in my chest; was it just because I was getting tired? Or was it my anger trying to burn its way out? I do not know.

After a long while, Judge finally spoke just one sentence, “It’s possible.”

“Damn you!” I yelled furiously.

My expression cold, I got up from my bed and went over to my wardrobe, took out my cloak before looking at my Holy Sun Blade hesitatingly. I was considering taking it out but then decided against it. After all, it wasn’t like I had any confirmed plan. I only wanted to get away from here and Judge!

“Sun, where are you going? You still haven’t fully recovered--” Judge had stood up too, looking disapprovingly at me.

“I’m going to see Pink.” I interrupted him and then mocked, “If you want to, you can add ‘consorting with necromancers’ to my list of crimes.”

“You - ” Judge was getting angry too.

‘Oh, dear!’ I thought nervously. I hadn’t meant to slip out that last sentence. Now Judge has gotten angry……

‘Oh! I don’t care! So what if he’s angry? I’m even angrier!’

I grabbed the cloak and headed out, deciding to discuss the events with Pink, when I suddenly remembered something and turned back to Judge. “Under no circumstances is anyone allowed to spread the Pope’s ridiculous rumours. I will find out the truth.”

Again, Judge went silent at my words. I felt a little nervous, because in the past, this best friend had agreed to all my demands - among which many were rather random and unreasonable - with no questions asked. Taking my place in fights, helping me to investigate a case, helping me to get even with someone…… Yet now he keeps quiet…… ‘Oh dear, I really shouldn’t have angered him,’ I thought.

Fortunately, Judge was more forgiving than I thought, for after turning it over in his head for a moment, he replied, “I can only suppress it for three days, at most.”

“Very well! Three days it is.” I agreed before I put on my cloak and left my room.

~O~O~O~O~

“Hey boss, give me your biggest, sweetest, pink, strawberry flavoured lollipop!”

I tossed out a silver coin and got back in return a lollipop even bigger than my head. Straight away, I regretted my actions. What was I doing, trying to act cool? Now my retirement fund has decreased by one silver coin!

My heart heavy with regret, I trudged over to Pink’s house. I don’t know if she knew I was coming or if she was just enjoying some sun, but when I reached her place she was already outside staring hungrily at the huge lollipop I held. Her drooling saliva was enough to fill as many as three buckets full.

She rushed towards me but I quickly lifted it out of her reach, causing the tiny necromancer to jump around me trying to reach the lollipop. In the end, she gave up and pouted at me, clasped her little hands together and knelt in front of me, looking at me pleadingly.

“Has the Death Knight been here?” I asked, waving the lollipop.

Pink swallowed a mouthful of saliva and said, “Yes.”

Ah - ha! Looks like we’re getting somewhere.

“Does he still listen to your orders?”

“He’s never listened to my orders. Death Knights are rarely obedient. I told him to sweep and mop the floor, and to wipe the tables, but he completely ignored me.” Pink pouted.

Asking a Death knight to sweep and mop…… Alright, fine. Even the Sun Knight runs errands for her and buys her lollipops. Ordering a Death Knight to clean shouldn’t be so surprising.

“Oh yeah! Sun, don’t go provoking him, he’s really strong right now. You can’t beat him.”

I looked at her strangely. This indifferent little necromancer who’s afraid of nothing, is asking me to avoid the Death Knight?

Pink mumbled, “If you are cut into tiny pieces by him, even I would have trouble reviving you. Then I won’t have my apprentice anymore.”

She then tugged at my cloak and asked me eagerly, “When are you going to become my apprentice?”

“When I’m dead.”

Don’t mistake this sentence for a refusal!

A few years back when I was unable to complete my mission, I had foolishly turned to Pink for help. Of course, she wasn’t going to help me out for free, so I promised to give her things in return for each time she helped - lollipops, beautiful pink frocks, a pair of good - looking male and female corpses……I had to go digging around several graveyards for ten nights, looking for corpses fitting those requirements.

In the end when I had nothing left to offer, I actually went ahead and offered my ‘dead self’.

Ever since, I hardly dared to ask for her help any more, afraid that I would lose even my ‘alive self’ to her.

“What is that Death Knight’s unfulfilled obsession?” I asked, waving the lollipop high up in the air. I intended to make full use of that one silver coin that I had spent.

Pink looked at the lollipop before reluctantly saying, “Don’t know, he won’t say.”

“How about who his murderer is?”

Pink gave me a strange look and said matter-of-factly, “Duh, wasn’t that you?”

“I didn’t kill him!!” I shouted angrily.

“Oh, I see… so it wasn’t you……” Pink glanced everywhere else but me, not looking like she believed me at all.

‘This brat…’ I grinded my teeth, wishing I could bite her instead. But, of course, I didn’t really do so. I’d probably die from food-poisoning from eating rotten flesh if I actually bit her!

And besides, I still need her to clear my name. So, I smiled at her my most innocent, most misunderstood and hurt smile - guaranteed to arouse that mothering instinct hidden within all women and to generate sympathy for me.

Sure enough, Pink looked at me with an intense look in her eyes, rushed to me with her arms outstretched, looking like she wanted to give me a hug, and then she…… snatched the lollipop from me.

So, the brat was eyeing the lollipop! I had forgotten to hold it up and she had taken the opportunity to snatch it away!

With the lollipop now gone, I wondered if she would still agree to help me. ‘Don’t tell me I have no choice but to sell of ‘my alive self’!’ I thought as I slumped to the ground, depressed.

Pink crouched down beside me licking her new lollipop. She then patted my arm comfortingly and said, “Don’t get so depressed, Sun. If it really wasn’t you then just find out who the real culprit is.”

“Easier said than done.” I rolled my eyes at her. “It seems that the crown prince is involved in it. I can’t just go up to the duke’s third son and ask: ‘Hey, was it the crown prince who did it?’”

Pink tilted her head and thought it over. “Then just kidnap him here, and I’ll interrogate him for you for free!”

“……Which do you think would be worse? Torturing a guy to death, or consorting with necromancers?”

Pink looked at me as if to say ‘One really cannot make a horn of a pig’s tail’ and shook her head, sighing. “Are you stupid? Can’t you just cover up your face and be done with it?”

I was sorely tempted to do as she had suggested, for Pink could make anyone talk. It would save me a lot of effort……

But wait a minute! That duke’s third son is a pretty strong knight in his own right! With my holy spells and my Holy Sun Blade, I could probably defeat him, but I can’t guarantee that I can get him alive!

Besides, someone in the duke’s household would come running to help him. I definitely can’t defeat all of them!

“He’s too strong, and he’s bound to have a lot of guards around him, I can’t kidnap him.” I said, feeling even more depressed than ever.

“Says who? You’re the one person I acknowledged worthy of becoming my apprentice!” Disagreed Pink. She grabbed my arm and dragged me into her house. Now, she may look like a little girl, but she’s as strong as an ox! I was unable to break her grip on me and could do nothing but follow her in.

Sob, sob! Being dragged by a little girl half my height is horrible! As much as two thirds of my body was being dragged along the ground……

‘Bang!’

She dragged me into the house and slammed the door behind us, before releasing me and running to a large chest. As she rummaged through the chest - carelessly throwing around various things - her ‘cleaner corpse’ dutifully picking up her mess after her.

I stared blankly after her. When a pair of lacy panties landed on my head, I couldn’t hold in my curiosity any longer and asked, “What are you looking for?”

“Found it!” She exclaimed - just after I had asked my question - before removing from the chest a badge the size of my hand.

I then stared at her blankly as she scurried over and slapped the badge onto my chest. I looked down and examined the badge. It was black with silver trimmings in the shape of a dragon; simple yet beautiful. It made a great accessory.

But I knew that nothing Pink owned was as it seemed. Except her lollipops, of course. There are five categories for Pink’s belongings: dangerous, very dangerous, extremely dangerous, capable-of-destroying-the-world dangerous…… and not dangerous at all.

“What is it ?” I asked nervously. I still don’t know which category this badge falls into!

“Ouch!”

Pink had pricked my finger with her sharp nails and held the badge under it, letting a few drops of my blood fall onto it. The badge suddenly glowed softly, and I understood that the glow signified the badge’s acceptance of my ownership.

There are many various objects which require drops of blood - or in some cases, a magic ritual - to let the object recognise its owner, before allowing you full use of them.

My Holy Sun Blade is one such prime example. I had to undergo an extremely complicated ritual and had spent  a lot of my blood to switch ownership of the sword from my teacher to me. Only after going through said ritual was I able to access its full powers. To any other person holding it, they would only be able to wield it as they would an ordinary sword.

One thing these objects all have in common is that they are precious, valuable and expensive!

Not even a whole vault of gold could necessarily get you one of these treasures, yet here I was, casually given one of them. I had to admit that I felt quite touched by Pink’s generous gesture.

When I looked at her, I could tell that Pink was feeling a little discomfited by the ceremony. After all, my blood is well known to be one of the holiest things in the world, and absolutely lethal to all Dark creatures.

“All done!” Pink let out a deep breath and quickly retracted her hand, dropping the badge into my lap. I picked it up curiously and asked, “What is this?”

Pink looked at me mischievously and instructed, “Shout out: ‘Dragon’s Holy Robe, in the name of the dragon’s successor, I order you to activate!’”

I looked at the badge a little sceptically, ‘I wonder which god had designed such an old - fashioned incantation……’

Well, I’m sure Pink won’t harm me. I mean, if she had wanted to she could have easily done so without needing to go through all this hassle. So, I began chanting, “Dragon’s Holy Robe, in the name of the dragon’s successor, I order you to activate!”

The moment the words left my mouth, the badge trembled and floated up, emitting a silvery glow which became stronger and stronger until I had to close my eyes from the glare. Eyes closed, I could feel something - probably the badge - attach itself to my chest before growing bigger and bigger until it had enveloped my whole body.

To be honest, I was feeling extremely nervous. For all I know, this badge could be capable-of-destroying-the-world dangerous, but it was a little too a late to do anything now.

“Wow. Wow! Sun, you have such a great body!” I heard Pink exclaiming.

‘Huh? I have a great body? I’m not naked, am I?!’

I quickly opened my eyes and looked down. Phew! Luckily I didn’t see anything that looked like naked flesh. But my clothes had turned into a skin-tight black outfit, moulding to my figure and leaving nothing to the imagination…… No wonder Pink had said that I had a great body.

The black outfit had a light covering of silver armour protecting my chest and other important places, and even the boots were of a silver metal. At a closer look, I realized that the armour was actually made of many interlocking scales as small as my thumbnail , becoming a strong flexible armour that wouldn’t hinder my movements at all.

“This is a magnificent piece of work……” I couldn’t help admiring. But halfway through my sentence I suddenly realised that my voice had changed, no, more like I was speaking through something.

I curiously walked over to the only mirror in the house and looked at my reflection. A cool looking guy wearing a black skin-tight outfit and silver armour looked back at me. Especially with the streaks of silver in my black hair, I was dastardly handsome, capable of stealing the hearts of eight year old girls and eighty year old grandmas alike …… w-wait a minute! Streaks of silver amongst black hair?

I was stunned.

“Ahh---!!! My hair, its changed colours! My golden hair! Ahh!! I’m going to lose my job, I can’t be the Sun Knight anymore! Nooo--! I don’t want to become depressed over losing my job and have to join the God of Light!”

The handsome man capable of stealing the hearts of eight year old girls and eighty year old grandmas alike screamed while grabbing his beautiful black and silver hair.

“How noisy,” said Pink, calmly licking her lollipop.

~O~O~O~O~

“OK, so its 300 ml of blood to change once, and it lasts for three hours. Every additional hour is another 200 ml of blood. I would advise you to go for five hours at the very most, or else you might very well die from blood loss.”

Why does it sound like it is being put to work, and that I’m paying its wages in blood……

“However, after returning to your original appearance, you have to wait for another 24 hours before you can use it again.”

And I even have to give it break times. Only working five hours a day, isn’t that a little too little……?

“After you’ve changed forms, your defence doubles, your strength increases by 60%, you can jump higher by 50%, and your speed increases by 120%.”

What detailed figures, why not just make it simpler and double all of them?

“After adding up all that, Sun, you should be about……  85% as strong as the Judge Knight!”

‘Ergh! You don’t have to remind me how bad I am at battling!’

“However with that ridiculously good recovery ability of yours (even better than the undead), as long as you can drag out the fight for three days and three nights, you’ll definitely win!”

“……Have you forgotten that this outfit will suck my blood? I would have become a drained corpse within a day or two, let alone three days and three nights!”

“Oh, that’s right! I forgot about that…… it’s alright! I’ll just show you a few necromancy spells then, watch carefully!”

I don’t want to! I’m the sun Knight; if people were to hear that I knew black magic, I’d be tied to a stake and burned alive!

…… Eh? I’ve learned it? Oh God! I’ve learnt it just by seeing it once?! Nooo--! Don’t tell me I’m a priest prodigy, a magician prodigy, and now even a necromancer prodigy?!

“Sun, did you pick becoming a Sun Knight by throwing a dice? That dice god must really hate you……”

Stop talking about it…… sob, sob…!

I spent one hour at Pink’s house listening to her explaining the rules of the Dragon’s Holy Robe, as well as accidentally picking up a few necromancy spells…… Oh dear! I must take extra care not to accidentally use those spells, or I’ll be in big trouble!

When Pink got more and more excited and started breaking out the more advanced spells, I quickly escaped from the little house to avoid becoming an advanced level necromancer.

Sigh… Forget about it! Now, if I can locate the Duke of Ceylan’s third son within half an hour, spend another half hour bringing him to a deserted place, and use a further half hour to force the truth from him with the spells Pink just taught me, I should be able to change back within the three hour limit and avoid having to pay out additional blood to this blood-sucking outfit!

It might not seem like a big deal to you, losing just 300 ml of blood, but I’ve already lost too much blood too many times to remember, these past few days!

So without wasting another moment, I rushed off to look for the duke’s third son. By my fist or by my black magic, I will definitely force out the truth from him!

Book 1: Rule 7 – The Sun Knight’s Seventh Rule: “Never underestimate a single thing. Even a robe, when angry, could bite you in the ass.”

So, to preserve as much blood as possible, I rushed away from Pink’s house and began my search.

This outfit of mine may look cool and handsome, but precisely because it was too cool and too handsome, I would attract way too much attention if I were to walk on the streets. It’s like announcing to the whole world, ‘I’m a suspicious person!’ I’d be dragged off by my own holy knights as well as the royal guards to have ‘a little chat’ with the Judge Knight!

So the only option left to me is to run about atop the roofs.

Luckily for me, it is now in the evening, when the twilight made things difficult to see. Otherwise, I would have been spotted immediately by the patrolling guards below in the streets.

I leapt from roof to roof, feeling light as a feather, as if I were flying. Each leapt was twice the height of a man, and each time I landed as quietly as a cat. I felt like laughing out loud, oh, how I enjoyed this rare feeling of freedom.

Pink really is worthy of her status as a-god knows how many centuries old-necromancer. Even a simple gift casually handed over is such a treasure. Although… this outfit’s name is really weird. Why call it Dragon’s Holy Robe? Its name is so outdated. These days, aren’t precious artefacts are more commonly called the Atlantis Sword or XXX Goddess’ Blessings, or something like that?

But back to the matter at hand-even stranger than its name is the Dragon’s Holy Robe’s bloodsucking element. With it sucking that much blood, where does it all go?

I have great suspicions that this outfit is actually a kind of dark creature; but my blood is one of the holiest things in the world. Just one ml of my blood should be enough to force it to reveal its true form, much less after sucking 300 ml of my blood……. On the other hand, maybe its true form actually is just an outfit?

‘This lowly one really is just an outfit.’

I came to a standstill at once and looked around, but other than myself there is not a single person on the roofs, so who said that just now? Maybe I’m just suffering from excessive blood loss and hallucinating?

‘This humble servant has yet to suck your blood. Only when Master has changed back will he have to pay out the appropriate amount of blood.’

“Ooh…… Is that so?” I nodded in understanding. “That’s pretty considerate. People put on this outfit to aid them in battles. If they were to start feeling faint during the battle due to excessive blood loss, they would lose the fight very quickly.”

‘Master, you praise this one too much.’

“Oh no, not at all. I’m only stating the truth. This really is…… very…… very considerate……”

My eyes widened as I looked around. I could have sworn that that the only thing capable of speech around here was--!

Then what the heck was talking to me just now?! And so politely too!

‘This lowly one is the Dragon’s Holy Robe.’

“You’re this black outfit I’m wearing?” I stiffly looked down at the super-cool black and white armour outfit. “Prove it to me.” I asked of it doubtfully.

‘May this one ask Master what proof is required of this servant?’

“Stop calling me Master and saying ‘this one’, ‘that one’. It sounds weird.” I shook my head and said offhandedly, “Why don’t you move a little?”

‘Yes, Master.’

Immediately after speaking, I started feeling a strange sensation. Why does it feel as if…… something very tight is squeezing me?!

I looked down in panic and watched disbelievingly as my waist shrunk…… I gaped speechless at my now 25 inch waist, when I started to feel a little short of breath. I hurriedly cried out, “Stop, stop, stop! I’m going to be squeezed to death! I believe you’re the Dragon’s Holy Robe, so stop already!”

‘Yes, Master.’

I watched in gratitude as my waist returned to its proper girth that any full grown man should have-30 inches.

“How the times have changed!” I sighed with feeling.

In the past, only prized swords or magic gems and stuff like that could talk; but now, even clothes have started speaking!

The next time I go shopping for clothes, I better find out if they can talk beforehand, or else my room may have to play host to a ‘clothes gathering’. Should that happen, I might lose it and burn them all up before waking up and remembering that I had paid good money for those clothes…… and then I’ll die inelegantly of heartache for my wasted money.

‘This lowly one is extremely sorry; this servant will not simply speak up in the future.’

‘What a good and obedient outfit!’ I thought. Then, I couldn’t resist the urge to ask, “Since you’re so obedient, could you not suck my blood when I change back?”

‘Th-this, I’m sorry but… this lowly one is unable to do so……’

‘As expected, it didn’t work,’ I sighed. Oh well, I doubt I’ll be using this outfit often, what’s a little 300 ml of blood to me, eh?

‘Master, there’s some movement about a hundred meters to your left.’

‘What?!’ I was rather shocked. I was shocked, not because there was some movement ahead, but because of the discovery that this Dragon’s Holy Robe came with an ‘auto detection sensor’! That 300 ml worth of blood really is worth it!

I advanced in the direction given by the Dragon’s Holy Robe and discovered my own holy knights below. This area is a small plaza situated along one of the main roads leading to the royal palace. More than twenty holy knights were gathered in the plaza; the fire badge worn proudly on their chest proclaimed them to be from the Blaze Knight Division. Their leader, the Blaze Knight was there too.

Upon seeing this, I hurriedly crouched down on the roof to avoid being spotted by any of them and possibly getting mistaken for a bad guy.

But I was puzzled about one thing. This month isn’t the Blaze Knight Division’s turn to patrol the city. If I’m not mistaken, this month it should be the Judge Knight Division that are in charge of patrolling the streets. Whenever it comes the Judge Knight Division’s turn to do the patrolling, the city’s crime rate would drop drastically. No one would dare to start a fight on the streets; why, even quarrelling married couples would shut their windows carefully before fighting with each other. Softly.

During this whole month, the only incident that had happened was when the ‘dead knight’ came a knocking. And the only reason that ‘dead knight’ was allowed to disturb the city’s peace for so long instead of being dispatched immediately by the Judge Knight Division, was because everyone had a mutual agreement that all undead were to be left to the Sun Knight-me-to deal with.

However, I did not have time to figure out this puzzle, for I had discovered an even more startling fact. The Blaze Knight Division’s opponent was none other than—the Death Knight!

Yup! Can’t be mistaken. This is the faded fellow who had taken a hack at my back; the guy who had left behind an ominous ‘I will come back for you’ before escaping; the one who had nearly arranged a meeting with the God of Light for me.

But…… there seems to be something different about this guy today?

 I frowned as I inspected him. He looks…… a little darker than last time? Huh? Did this dead guy feel that his skin was too pale and went for a sun tanning session?

“He heh! I finally found you.”

Blaze’s cold laugh finally caught my attention. Wow. I couldn’t believe that Blaze was actually sneering! Wasn’t he always a clumsy buffoon who walked around with a swagger? An open person who showed all his emotions on his face? Other than laughing loudly, he should only be able to laugh wildly.

Don’t tell me… this guy has also been hiding his real personality, different to his outside appearance?!

And here I thought he was the one among the Twelve Holy Knights whose real personality matched their respective Holy Knight personality the most! After all, I had met the six future Holy Knights of the Good Warm Faction when I was ten. We’re actually well aware of each others’ original personalities.

Storm was actually a very shy kid; it was said that it had taken his teacher 3 years just to get him to wink at a girl without blushing!

Leaf had always been a nice and kind boy. A darling. After undergoing further training with his teacher, I believe that there are less than a handful of people in the world who could be said to be kinder than him.

As for Earth, that guy had always been a rebellious kid who scoffed at the rules. His teacher had to spend god knows how long to get him to at least pretend to be an honest and sincere person.

And Blaze was really a wild monkey who hardly needed any training to fit the Blaze Knight’s known personality.

As for the Cold Blood Faction’s six Holy knights, I only met them when I was about eleven or twelve years old. By then, everyone had already undergone three years of torture training.

So if you ask about the Cold Blood Faction’s original personalities-well, I’m not too sure about them…… I can only repeat what I have heard from Judge.

“It is you, garbage, who had injured Sun and falsely accused him. And caused me to nearly kill him!” Shouted Blaze in anger as he drew out the broadsword he carried on his back. So great was his anger that his eyes had become blood-red, and even his red hair seemed to burn like his namesake.

I was stunned at this. Blaze was angry because of me! No wonder he was acting so unlike himself. Well, I guess it can’t be helped. You see, ever since we were kids, Blaze had always especially idolized me. Even till this day I have no idea why. Perhaps his teacher had brainwashed him on this aspect a little too much?

“I… am not… garbage!” growled the Death Knight, as the black aura surrounding him suddenly grew thicker. The sword he held in his hand seem to take on a more sinister look-its glinting blade looked sharp enough to slice through flesh and bone, and its hilt was wrought into that of a figure of a person writhing in agony.

This is bad. Blaze had probably hit a nerve or something and now the Death Knight’s furious.

I felt annoyed at myself. Why hadn’t I remembered to ask Pink if the sword was one of her things, and if so, what special abilities it possessed?

And what was worse, Blaze’s fighting abilities aren’t as good as Frost’s. It’s impossible for him to defeat the Death Knight.

Fortunately, Blaze isn’t so stupid as to fight with the Death knight one-on-one. With a wave of his hand, his well-trained knights immediately surrounded the Death Knight. Two of the knights stepped into the circle, forming a triangle with Blaze with the Death Knight in the middle.

‘Great job!’ I cheered inside. Surround the Death Knight to prevent its escaping should he lose, while at the same time protecting the innocent bystanders from any harm. Although, there aren’t any crowds around today. Blaze had probably warned them to stay away earlier. But even without anyone else around, the surrounding buildings are no hindrances to the Death Knight. Should he knock down one of the buildings and take the people inside hostage…… the situation will only get even worse!

Now, while I might approve of Blaze’s actions and thoughtfulness, the Death Knight was instead further enraged by his actions. The flames in his eyes burn even stronger as he growled, “Disgraceful! How disgraceful! You are not worthy of calling yourselves Holy Knights!”

At this, I wrinkled my forehead while thinking, ‘Could it be that this Death Knight has something to do with us Holy Knights?’

You see, if the average person were to come across an injustice, they would say that it was unbefitting behaviour of a knight who should uphold justice; they would not specifically say that it was unbefitting of a holy knight, because other than their different allegiances, ordinary knights and holy knights are basically the same thing. In fact, you could say that the holy knights are a sub-division of the knight category.

Blaze was a hot tempered person and easily angered. When he heard the Death Knight’s disparagement, he was offended and shouted back, “It is you who are not worthy of calling yourself a dead person. The dead should quietly shut their mouths-forever! Attack!” The last part was, of course, directed at the holy knights.

After his order, Blaze himself immediately launched himself at the Death Knight and started battling with him. The other two holy knights, accustomed to their leader’s style, immediately closed in on the two, lending a helping hand to Blaze as and when the opportunity arises.

Even though it would appear that they’re losing even three-to-one, I’m not all worried, for even if Blaze and the other two weren’t enough to beat the Death Knight, there are still twenty more holy knights there watching them carefully.

I refuse to believe that one Death Knight is able to defeat all of them. After all, it is not easy to get assigned to one of the Twelve Holy Knights’ Divisions. Every one of these knights are the crème de la crème of the Holy Temple.

Just as I was thinking this, Blaze had called on two more of his holy knights to aid him and the five of them continued to attack the Death Knight with flawless teamwork.

Upon seeing this, I was even more at ease. Even when in such an enraged state, Blaze had not lost his senses and had made the correct decision to quickly end the battle before their opponent could inflict any further damage.

“Disgraceful! Utterly disgraceful!”

The Death Knight seemed to only be able to repeat those few words. At the same time, he seemed to be getting darker and darker……

No! It’s the aura around him that’s getting thicker and darker!

Turning back to Blaze, he seemed to not have noticed this. As the holy Sun Knight I’m probably the only one who is able to sense these minute changes in the black aura. This looks bad! I have to find a way to warn Blaze!

Thinking it over, I concluded that I could only do so by joining in the battle. If worst comes to worst, I’ll just run away after everything’s over.

I stood up and drew my Holy Sun Blade…… What Holy Sun Blade?! Looking down at myself, my body does look pretty good, if I do say so myself…… ahem! As I was saying, right now I’m wearing a skin-tight outfit. There’s no way for one to hide a weapon on myself.

Am I to join the battle with just my bare hands? Blaze might as well yell at me to stand aside and stop hindering him.

‘Master, this humble servant is able to provide Master with a weapon.’

“Really?!” I cried happily, “Quickly give it to me!”

‘Master, I have an obligation to remind you that the weapon will cost you 200 ml of your blood.’

“What?! This is daylight robbery! Sucking more of my blood just for some measly weapon.” I exclaimed appalled. “You black hearted monster. No wait, you don’t have a heart. You ‘black outfit’!”

‘This lowly one is indeed a black outfit.’

I gritted my teeth in irritation, but looking down at the situation below, it would appear that I have no other option but to agree. The Death Knight might have suffered a few wounds from the ongoing battle, but the dark aura he emitted was growing yet stronger. Even Blaze, that oaf, could sense that something was wrong, but it doesn’t look like he plans on retreating for now. I snapped angrily at the outfit, “Just give me the weapon!”

‘Yes, Master.’

Instantly, I felt something at my waist and found a sword hilt. I drew it out quickly and—

 “Shit! What the hell is this? A letter opener?!”

‘Master, it is a sword dagger.’

“A sword what?!”

I stared at the sword, no, dagger I held in my hand. It was only as long as my forearm, with its hilt taking up one-third of it; it looked like a little kid’s toy. Its blade was quite thick and one of its edges was sharply serrated.

‘This sword dagger is small enough to be used for an assassination; should the assassination fail, the serrated edge would come in handy to saw/break of the opponent’s sword and allow for escape.’

“This all sounds pretty good, but…… I’m not on an assassination mission!” I rolled my eyes at the outfit’s explanation.

Even if I wished to quietly assassinate the Death Knight, a simple dagger would not be enough to kill it. And furthermore, I doubt that this tiny dagger would be able to break that dreadful sword.

“Do you have any ordinary swords? Even a blade is fine!”

_{*a sword is double-edged, while a blade has only a single edge.}

‘Master, this lowly one is an assassin’s outfit; this servant does not have weapons used by warriors.’

“I see… These days, even outfits stand firm as to which category they belong to huh...…” I sighed as I looked down at the dagger. ‘Am I really going to fight a Death Knight armed with only this for a weapn?’ I thought in exasperation. In a last ditch attempt of desperation, I asked, “Do you have any other types of weapons?”

‘Yes. The darts require 100ml of blood, the poison arrows cost 150ml, the……’

“…… forget I even asked.”

‘Yes.’

I sighed once more, rethinking my plans. Rather than jumping into the battle with just the dagger, it might actually be better to revert back to my Sun Knight form and aid them with my holy blood and my specialty-holy spells.

Either way, it looks like I won’t be able to accomplish my original objective. I can’t just leave Blaze to fend for himself while I myself go off to kidnap the Duke of Ceylan’s third son.

Just as I was about to jump off the roof to change back in some dark alley, the situation unexpectedly took a turn for the worse. I could sense the dark aura from the Death Knight changing-instead of just surrounding the Death Knight like before, it was now beginning to form a swirling vortex with the Death Knight standing right at the heart of it. He was absorbing all the dark impressions and aura from around the whole city into his body.

I turned back in alarm and without a second thought I cut myself on the dagger, coating it with my blood. As I leapt down from the roof, I cast upon myself Divine Wings and Holy Blessings.

There was only one thought running through my mind:

‘Do not allow him to become a Death Lord!’

~O~O~O~

By now, the whole plaza was filled with the dark and depressing aura. It was now so thick that a weak-minded person would have committed suicide. Even the holy knights who were made of stronger stuff were looking rather pale and swaying dangerously on their feet. Only Blaze was strong enough to withstand its effects.

“Disgraceful!” shouted the Death Knight as he absorbed even more of the dark aura and turning to lunge at Blaze. By now, his flame-eyes had turned from its original pale red to a dark grey colour. When he has fully become a Death Lord, they would have turned to pure black.

“Bla-Blaze Knight……” cried the holy knights when they saw their leader being attacked, as they tried to reach him, but every step they took towards the centre of the dark aura weighed a ton and seemed to be pulling them down.

“Go! You guys are useless here. Quickly go and notify the Holy Temple of the situation.” Blaze said fiercely.

“No! We cannot do that. Blaze Knight, please retreat first,” shouted the holy knights.

“You…… all of you…… not a single one…… is allowed to leave! You shameless knights!”

The Death Knight’s aura suddenly changed back into a cloud around him before rapidly shooting outwards and forming a giant barrier around the whole of the plaza.

He was going to get rid of this division of holy knights, even if he would become a Death Lord.

And his first target is their leader, the Blaze Knight.

Blaze raised his giant broadsword; the purification fire that had initially covered the whole sword was now reduced to a weak flickering flame, in danger of sputtering out at any time due to the dark heavy aura.

Dealing with the undead was never one of Blaze’s specialties. His purification fire was meant to deal with ghosts and spirits. Spirits and ghosts and the undead might sound like they belong to the same category, but they’re actually different things. The most distinct difference between the two is that the spirits do not have a physical body, while the undead still possess flesh and bone. (Sometimes only bone if their flesh had rotted away.)

Purification fire is deadly to spirits and ghosts, as they are exorcised the moment the fire touches them. However, the undead have a physical body blocking the fire from their ‘soul’, so the fire’s effects are significantly diminished. So, even though the undead also try to avoid the purification fire, they are not as afraid of it as the spirits are.

The undead have always been one of the Sun Knight’s main responsibilities!

I clutched my dagger and tried to stealthily approach the battling two……

“Who is it?” The Death Knight turned to look at me coldly.

Damn! I’d wanted to perform a sneak attack, but my holy presence stuck out like a sore thumb in this sea of dark aura. To the Death Knight, I’m probably as bright as a flame in the dark.

Without saying a word, I began my attack on him, thereby declaring through my actions to the holy knights that I am on their side.

The Death Knight did not seem to take me as a threat seriously, but I forgive him. Even I would not be able to take seriously someone who held an assassin’s dagger, yet did not keep to his job description as an assassin and assassinate people, but instead butted-in in a battle with a confrontational attack.

He was still staring at me, stunned, as I launched my first attack at him.

‘Bastard! How dare you not take me seriously! You think I really want to attack you upfront with just this dagger?! If not because to you - a Death Knight - my holy presence is even brighter than the stars in the sky, making it impossible to assassinate you, I can only use this dagger to openly attack you. It’s not like I had any other choice, so don’t give me that look!’

When my dagger managed to slice his chest, causing his chest to hiss and him to cry out in pain, he finally woke up from his stupor and raised his sword to block my second attack.

He looked at me and said, “It really is you.”

Oh no! He’s recognised me! I don’t want Blaze and the rest of the holy knights to recognise me too! The great Sun Knight running around in a strange black outfit with silver armour; golden hair dyed black and silver, and even worse, leaving behind his Holy Sun Blade and fighting with a silly assassin’s dagger……

I can’t say that I have a perfectly innocent explanation for it, like, oh… ‘I’m just going off to kidnap someone, this dagger should be sufficient for this purpose’, now can I?!

“S-”

Before he could finish calling out my name, I quickly shouted out loudly, “That’s right! It is I! The one who specialises in killing Death Knights, who am well known in the North and South, the renown-Slayer!”

“Slayer...?” Blaze blinked at my announcement before turning to his holy knights and asked, “You guys heard of Slayer?”

The twenty-two holy knights shook their head in unison-no.

“Slayer…?” The Death Knight, too, was confused at my proclaimed name. “You’re not…Sun-?”

Quickly, I shouted out, drowning out his question. “Prepare for your end, Death Knight! Now that I, the expert Death Knight hunter, have seen you, you’re dead for sure!”

“Isn’t the Death Knight technically dead already?” muttered Blaze. “And are there really that many Death Knights around for you to hunt?”

“Death Knight, let’s quickly end this battle once and for all.”

I said to him coldly, worried that the longer this drags out, the greater the chances of my true identity being exposed. I don’t want to be forever known as ‘that weird Sun Knight with the bizarre dressing hobby’!

It’s not that I really mind my reputation that much, but if my teacher-known as the strongest Sun Knight ever-were to ever catch wind of it and realise that he was the teacher of ‘that weird Sun Knight with the bizarre dressing hobby’…… Well, the Holy Temple would then have one more scandal to cover.

‘Shocking News! Sun Knight Kills Sun Knight!’

‘… … … …’

I’m pretty sure the Holy Temple would not want to see a headline like that.

I don’t know if I was imagining it, but the Death Knight had seemed to hesitate for a moment at my statement before glancing at the others and saying coldly, “Fine by me.”

I couldn’t help thinking that his actions were a little unusual. Typically, a Death Knight would go berserk upon meeting their obsession…… at least, that’s what it says according to my ‘Comprehensive Guide to the Undead-Everything You need to Know About Them, And What To Do When You Meet One’.

The Death Knight quickly began attacking me in earnest after agreeing. I retaliated by casually throwing out a small ball of white light. This is a basic magic spell, and it has no function other than to illuminate. However, Death Knights dislike bright light. This ball of light in the midst of the dark should be enough to cause the Death Knight to falter.

As expected, the Death knight was momentarily blinded by the light and had to raise an arm to shield his eyes. With the added speed of my Divine Wings and the Dragon’s Holy Robe combined, I took this opportunity to rush at him. So great was my increased speed that I seemed to appear out of nowhere in front of him. I bet even pros like the Judge Knight would have difficulty blocking this attack.

Anyway, my attack was too fast for the Death Knight that even though he could sense my holy presence, he was unable to block me. I pulled a feint at his chest with my left hand, while stabbing his knees with the dagger in my right.

Seeing as the opponent is a Death Knight, attacking his chest was probably useless as he would suffer at most a hole in his chest. To a normal person, this would have been a mortal blow, but to an already dead Death Knight, it’s just another hole in his chest. Why, he might even feel that the hole would be helpful with air ventilation!

On the other hand, if I attacked his knees, damaging his knee joints could severely hinder his movements so that even if I couldn’t defeat him, I don’t have to worry about Blaze and the others getting killed by the Death Knight.

The Death Knight cried out in pain; his vision had returned by now, but I was ready for him and had closed my eyes while throwing out another ball of light at him before retreating back to a safer distance. I then quickly threw out a grease spell in between us.

“Argh!” roared the Death Knight in pain. He probably hadn’t expected his opponent to use the same trick twice and had gotten the full glare of the bright light right in his face this time.

‘How exhilarating!’ I thought as I opened my eyes once more. I could feel my heart beating quickly as it pumped the adrenaline through me! I had only thought of this trick when I had realised how great my speed was. If one were with a slower speed or were slower at spell casting, they would have been dead the moment they closed their eyes!

“This black clothed guy is pretty sneaky.”

‘Blaze! Fine, you can talk bad about me behind my back, but how dare you actually say it out so loud where I can hear you?! Hmph! You’re dead!’

One of the holy knights suddenly spoke up, “I understand now, Slayer is actually……”

Shit! They couldn’t have realised who I am, could they?

In perfect unison, all the holy knights said, “A sorcerer assassin!”

I nearly tripped and fall down. ‘Last time it was mage swordsman, now I’m a sorcerer assassin?!’

‘Idiots! I’m just a holy knight who happens to be wearing an assassin’s outfit and used some magic spells, OK? I’m not one of those with a weird job who learn magic and train as an assassin at the same time……’ But now that I think about it, does such a ‘unique’ job really exist?

Oh Shit! I had gotten distracted by them, and now the Death Knight is attacking me. I immediately thought to run, but the surrounding oppressive dark aura that was previously stopping the holy knights from escaping had now enveloped me. With the Death Knight’s alarming speed, I was unable to do anything. Holy spells that did not require me to chant its incantation would not help me out of this oppressive dark aura barrier.

Seeing as I was going to be chopped to pieces by the Death Knight, I was grasping at straws when a spell suddenly came to mind. With the surrounding dark aura so thick, I probably won’t even have to chant its incantation for it to work……

“Bone Prison!”

A simple, crude cage made entirely out of bones sprung up between the Death Knight and I.

I used it! Oh, oh oh! I used the necromancer spells that Pink had taught me!

Dear Heavens, I’m going to turn into a necromancer! No! I’m the Sun Knight, I definitely cannot use this evil magic……

Pak! Pak!

With two swipes of the Death Knight’s sword, the Bone Prison had started shaking dangerously. The third swiped would probably bring the whole thing down!

“Bone Prison! Bone Prison! Bone Prison!”

I shouted out successively in one breath.

“You’re wrong!” exclaimed Blaze. “That Slayer is actually……”

Oh dear! Blaze is one of my Good Warm Faction, after all. He has probably recognised me from my behaviour……

“A necromancer assassin!”

“… … … …”

A feeling of despair suddenly hit me, just as the Death Knight was nearly done slashing his way through the three Bone Prisons. I still hadn’t thought up of a way to escape the dark aura, so, I had no other choice but to begin chanting an incantation while the Death Knight was still preoccupied with the Bone Prison. I then threw a Holy Light—Advanced Version at him. The Holy Light was able to disperse the surrounding dark aura, and even the Death Knight was forced to back off more than a few steps himself.

With this, they should now know that I am not some sorcerer assassin or necromancer assassin!

“It’s all wrong!” gasped Blaze and all the holy knights together in unison. “Slayer is actually……”

Oh, Oh! Oh! They’ve finally discovered it! They might not guess that I am the Sun Knight, but they should suspect me to be one of the Twelve Holy Knights, right? I had a strange gladden feeling at this.

“Holy Assassin!”

‘Snort!’

I looked over at the chuckling Death Knight with a deadpan look. It truly is a miracle bestowed upon us today by the God of Light! Our dear holy knights were able to make even a Death Knight, filled only with dark thoughts of revenge, laugh out loud. (Can you hear my sarcasm?)

“Holy Assassin, my ass!” I shouted at them. “Do you really think the Holy Temple would retain a group of Holy Assassins in addition to Holy Knights?! I’m the Sun Knight, you idiots!”

That—was what I would have loved to shout out, but the thought of my teacher coming to personally send me off to the God of Light to be ‘re-educated’ kept my mouth shut. I could only shout at them in my thoughts.

“Alright, that’s enough! We’ve been watching for too long now. Even though I have no idea who that black-clothed guy is, I don’t think he’s an enemy. Now let’s go and defeat the Death Knight together.” Blaze shouted at his knights.

“Yes!” The holy knights answered enthusiastically.

I nodded my head. With me, Blaze and the rest of the holy knights, we should be able to defeat this Death Knight.

At that moment, the Death Knight suddenly sent a charge of dark aura between me and the rest of the holy knights, succeeding in separating us.

Oh no. I was just about to send out another Bone Prison before chanting the incantation for the Holy Light again to disperse the dark aura, when the Death Knight suddenly spoke up.

“Creus, you’ve become stronger. That’s good.”

I stilled at my name. My name may not be a secret, but hardly anyone calls me by that name. Does this Death Knight really know me?

“Creus, if you aren’t chosen to become the Sun Knight, becoming a priest is not bad either! That way you can help to heal my wounds in the future. ”

The Death Knight blandly threw out these few sentences.  They were seemingly irrelevant to the current situation.

But these sentences were startlingly familiar to me…… I was stunned. For the first time I took a close look at the Death Knight’s face. Even though his face was ash grey and his eyes were fiery flames; that serious expression of his and those thin lips were, oh, so familiar. I finally recognised him…… or I guess I should say-who he was.

“Roland? You’re Roland?” I asked, shocked and upset at the thought. How could it be Roland?!

Roland. He was one of the contenders for the position of the next Sun Knight, the little brown haired knight with three times my skill at sword fighting……

And who was now a Death Knight.

“You still remember me,” smiled Roland contently.

With this smile, I was even more convinced that he really was Roland. I wanted to ask him, ask how he could have become a Death Knight, when we were interrupted by a noise.

“Judge! Hurry, he’s here……”

Roland had also heard this; he turned to run, but then hesitated and looked back at me, fear and wariness in his eyes.

I was torn. A voice inside cried out at me: ‘Stop him! Even if you can’t defeat him, stalling him until Judge gets here should be a simple task.

‘Judge is very strong. With him and his holy knights that are sure to be following him, as well as Blaze and his holy knights-even if I were to stay out of the fight-they would definitely be able to kill the Death Knight here and now. I am the Sun Knight, no matter who he may be, this Death Knight is still my enemy.’

By now, the Judge Knight Division could be seen.

Roland could not stay any longer and had turned to run.

I stood there dazedly for a few seconds as I watched him run further and further away, before turning and running away too, to avoid being caught by Judge Knight.

I am the Sun Knight, but at the same time I am also Creus. If I have to uphold the Sun Knight’s principles and kill this Death Knight, then I should at least be allowed to choose how I kill him.

Roland, this I swear to you, I will find out who had tortured you, and I will exact revenge for you.

Book 1: Rule 8 – The Sun Knight’s Eighth Rule: “Never act suspiciously while wearing a cloak.”

Creus, if you aren’t chosen to become the Sun Knight, becoming a priest is not bad either! That way you can help to heal my wounds in the future.

I abruptly jerked awake in bed. I had a dream. A dream of a memory long past, as well as a serious face I had not seen for a very long time.

Roland had always been a serious child, even when trying to comfort someone else. He had very seriously observed my abilities and then suggested a viable alternative for me. And I had genuinely considered taking his advice and becoming a priest in the Halls of Light, should I fail to get chosen to become the next Sun Knight.

I wouldn’t have minded becoming a priest, for I could then continue to stay by his side as his priest. Especially if Roland were to be chosen as the next Sun Knight, that would be the best!

I had met Roland at the selection held by the Holy Temple for the next Sun Knight. When all but ten contenders had been eliminated, everyone had looked upon each other as deadly enemies.

But Roland and I had been very close instead.

Roland had been very strong, the most promising one among us, while I? I was well aware that my sword skill was the worst among them. The only way for me to win would have been to pray for a miracle to happen.

But it is only when one is the most likely one to win, and the other is the least likely, that a friendship could be formed in such hostile waters.

But that day, our friendship was ruined when teacher had announced me as his successor……

“Why did you pick me?” I had asked in timid confusion as I stumbled up to the current Sun Knight. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought that I would be chosen.

“Well, it might be because of your beautiful golden hair.” My teacher had said in a lackadaisical tone.

My heart chilled at this irresponsible reply. Had I really gotten the position through such a dubious reason? But yet even if so, I just couldn’t bring myself to bow out, to say that I handover the position to Roland, I just can’t!

I, too, want to be the Sun Knight; I want it so much!

When I finally forced myself to turn around, Roland had already turned to leave. I could not see his expression, but he was walking away hurriedly, as if all this meant nothing to him; he hadn’t come up to congratulate me either, but given the situation, I was lucky he hadn’t taken a swing at me. Compared to the rest of the contenders who were eyeing me in hatred, I was grateful he hadn’t beaten me up.

“Do you hate me, Roland?” I murmured as I buried my face into my hands. “You came back because you hate me, right?”

“But how did you die? You are Roland! The Roland who was capable of defeating grownups even at the young age of ten……”

I then remembered the Duke’s third son, the implications with the Crown Prince, and understood. No matter how strong he is, Roland alone cannot win against someone with the might of a whole country behind them.

Even I, the Sun Knight, cannot directly confront the country’s ruler; not unless said ruler had a confrontation with the whole Church of the God of Light, unless said ruler starts a conflict between a country and a Religion of a God.

But… hmmm…… it seems that someone had promised to exact revenge for Roland….

‘… … … …’

‘Let’s put that aside for now! First, I should investigate the whole matter properly before I could even start thinking of revenge,’ I thought. Like an ostrich trying to bury its head in the sand at danger, I tried to avoid having to think of such a difficult and unsettling problem.

Now, if one wants to investigate the royalty, they should go to the Storm Knight. He’s always hanging around (winking) with the noble women 24/7, and can often be seen exchanging stories of romance and freedom with the playboy aristocrats, so he’ll definitely know plenty of secrets and scandals about them.

Well as the saying goes: ‘Make things happen, don’t wait for things to happen.’

I got myself presentable in just a minute and rushed out of my room to begin my search for the Storm Knight. Searching everywhere-high and low-in the large Holy Temple, I finally found him in one of the corridors carrying a huge stack of office documents.

“Brother Storm, can you help this Sun?” I asked without hesitation.

“Can I refuse?”

Storm didn’t look so hot right now, with a pair of deep black shadows under his eyes. I could tell from the imposing stack of documents he held that he’d probably been carrying out his duties as the Storm Knight. I.e. as the Storm Knight he has to skip meetings, and the rest of the Twelve Knights had-as usual-‘volunteered’ him to complete all the extra work that arose due to my absence these past few days.

“This is an order from the leader of the Twelve Holy Knights.”

“…… what is it?”

“Please help this Sun to investigate who among the nobles and royalty have the unsavoury hobby of torturing people, so that the God of Light may guide those lost sheep off the stray path and back onto the proper way.”

“If that’s your problem, then I can tell you without needing to investigate that eight out of ten of the nobility have such hobbies,” said Storm as he rolled his eyes at me.

“That many……” I was a little surprised. Is the art of torturing some kind of basic skill that the nobility must learn?

“Of course. They’re the nobility.” He replied matter-of-factly.

“Then…… are there any in particular who are especially immersed in such activities, who have not only strayed off the right path, but even gone so far as to commit an act unforgivable in the God of Light’s eyes, such as torturing their victims to death?”

At this, Storm gave me a strange look before answering my question seriously, “No one would actually admit to such an interest, but if you really want to know, there are quite a lot of unconfirmed rumours……”

“Do speak,” I encouraged.

I had originally thought that there would only be a few people, but in one breath, Storm expelled a whole list of names-more than ten, so many that even I whose memory is quite good could not memorize all of them.

“… … … … The Duke of Ceylan, and I think there are also such rumours surrounding the King.”

 I hesitated for a moment before pushing forward. “What about the Crown Prince?”

“Nope. I’ve yet to hear any such rumours about the Crown Prince. His reputation is one of the better ones among the nobility.”

Storm then shrugged before adding, “Of course, it could be because he hid his secrets very well. He might look like a weak and easy target, but he is the textbook example of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Otherwise, how could he have such power and leverage over the King?”

“Are you saying that you would not be surprised if he actually did tortured people to death?”

Storm gave me another strange look but nodded.

I felt a little disheartened, but I nodded at him and said, “That’ll be all. May you feel the bright presence of the God of Light no matter where you are, my brother Storm.”

Storm nodded and left, but I could hear him muttering, “How strange. Today, Sun’s words are so simple and clear! I could understand him immediately without needing to discern his meaning. How inconceivable……”

I ambled around while considering the matters in my head. The suspects number at more than ten, but seeing as the Duke of Ceylan and his son who had pledged his alliance to the crown prince is involved, the list of suspects can be narrowed down to: the Duke of Ceylan, the Crown Prince and His Majesty.

Even though the Duke’s third son’s pledged lord is the Crown Prince, the King should also be able to order him around. And the reason why I do not suspect the third son himself is because he had brought along two other knights with him when disposing of the body. Typically, knights greatly value their honour and reputation. If he had really been the culprit, he would never have willingly let others know of his secret. He would have gone to the execution grounds alone rather than bring along the other two knights.

But on the other hand, maybe the three of them had been in on it together?

“No.” I quickly refuted this theory. “Roland is too strong. He would never have fallen to those three.”

“Looks like you’ve found something.”

I jumped, startled, before I realised that it was the Judge Knight who had spoken.

“Roland, is that the Death Knight’s name?”

Judge looked at me piercingly, as if trying to read me for answers. I think I can now understand why the criminals would always spill out the truth to him.

As can be expected of Judge, he had pieced together the fact that Roland was the name of the Death Knight just from that one sentence.

“You know that Death Knight? But I’ve never heard you mention his name before. Was he an old friend?”

Erk! I have yet to say anything! Right? How come he seems to know everything already?! How scary!

“Blaze met the Death Knight yesterday, as well as a black clothed man……”

At this, Judge paused and looked at me. “You don’t seem surprised? Did you already know about this? But the Twelve Knights had just finished the meeting, and Blaze had left after me, so you couldn’t have met him.”

“… …” I think Judge can deduce everything even without me speaking a word.

Judge probably understood that I was unwilling to answer any questions, for he did not question me any further, only explaining this, “According to Blaze, the Death Knight is close to becoming a Death Lord. I intend to dispatch half of our knights to search him out in the city. The Pope has also agreed to send out half of his priest to aid in the search. A Death Lord must not be allowed to be born.”

Oh no, at this rate, Roland is going to be burned on a stake!

I pushed back my panic, drew myself up and putting on the rarely used Sun Knight’s dignified mask, said sternly, “I believe that matters of the undead are under my jurisdiction.  Judge Knight, you seem to have overstepped your boundaries.”

“My apologies, Sun Knight. I had believed you to be on leave, and the matter regarding the Death Knight cannot drag on for long, so I had taken the liberty of settling the matter in your stead. If you wish to handle this matter personally, then please cancel your leave. And may I remind you that you have two more days to investigate the truth of this matter.” Judge had replied calmly before leaving.

But as he passed by me, he quietly said, “Ever since we were kids, I’ve been forced to do many things that have crossed the boundaries; help me fight this, help me investigate that, help me beat up those guys who bullied me,… who do you think had requested all these things of me? Hmmm?”

Err…… It sounds like some of the things the ‘young and immature me’ had asked.

“No matter who Roland was, a Death Lord absolutely cannot be allowed to be born. Is this not the principle by which you stand firm with, Sun Knight?”

“Yes,” I quietly nodded in agreement, “this is Sun’s principle.” ‘But Creus has his own principles too.’

Judge nodded at my answer and left.

I am now quickly running out of time. The Holy Temple and the Hall of Light are highly efficient. With half of the people from both branches forming groups and combing the city for the Death Knight, it’ll only take them half a day to find him. Within this half a day, I have to find Roland first and place him in hiding with Pink.

I’m confident that Pink would be able to hide Roland without leaving a trace.

With my high sensitivity to dark aura, it shouldn’t be too hard for me to locate Roland within the deadline-provided that guy isn’t hiding in some unusual place.

I went back to my room and strapped on my Holy Sun Blade, put on an inconspicuous cloak to avoid attention, and headed out to the city centre-the city’s largest plaza. Pretending to be a weary traveller, I sat down beside one of the fountains.

Hidden under the cloak, I quietly clutched the Holy Sun Blade. The Holy Sun Blade is a precious artefact imbued with pure holy element, thus able to help increase my sensitivity towards any dark aura.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the dark auras in Sprouting Leaf City. There is an element of darkness in every city, as well as within every person, but these dark elements are in rather small amounts. Both the city and the ordinary person alike are filled with an assortment of different elements. While some might have a stronger fire or water element, it is only those who specialise in certain skills who would have certain elements in greater abundance within them. For example, a sorcerer specialising in fire would have an unusually high amount of the fire element within him.

By studying the different elements within a person, I am able to identify with almost certain accuracy the jobs of strangers I’m meeting for the first time.

Fortunately, my ability in sensing and recognising the different elements (mage sight) is better than average. It can even be said to be an innate gift, for although one could try to learn this skill, their skill will never be as strong as a natural’s.

My teacher is the only one who knows of this skill of mine. He had gravely warned me not to tell others of this ability, and had at the same time forbidden me from using it unless absolutely necessary.

This is because this ability is rather alarming, for you see, each person’s combination of the different elements are unique, and unlikely to change in the short run; so once I’ve recognised someone’s elements combination, I can then track their movements wherever they go.

And just as I can guess a certain person’s strengths and abilities just from seeing their elements, similarly I can tell if a person is carrying any magical items, and if so I can roughly tell what its properties are.

It would not be a good thing for me if others were to be aware of this ability of mine.

And besides, ever since I took on the title of the Sun Knight, my mage sight had weakened due to the overpowering holy aura on my person. The holy aura hampers me from sensing other elements, all except one type of element, that is. My sensitivity towards any dark element-which is on the opposite end of the spectrum from holy element-had instead increased significantly.

I could certainly sense the various pockets of dark element within the city, but only in small amounts. In fact, Sprouting Leaf city is actually considerably cleaner than various other cities.

I continually widened the range of my mage sight, from the plaza outwards in all directions; through dark alleys and corners, over old broken houses and bypassing straw-filled stables, yet I could not find a trace of Roland. Where could he have hidden himself?

His dark aura is too strong; there shouldn’t be any reason why I can’t sense him.

What if…… tentatively, I turned to look behind me. Not far away, rising over the city are the towers of the Royal Palace-the seat of the country’s King.

The Royal Palace could be considered one of the darkest places. While there may be many loyal and trustworthy knights there, the darkness of the nobility is overpowering. One can tell just from Storm’s tales of the nobility’s distasteful torturing hobby, that the Royal Palace is the dirtiest and darkest place.

Even from where I’m sitting, I could feel the whole Royal Palace smothered in a cloud of dark aura. I would never be interested in the place, if not for the possibility that Roland might be hiding in there.

‘I really don’t wan’na extend my senses into that cloud of oppressive dark aura…….’ I wailed inside, but seeing as I cannot find Roland anywhere else, the Royal Palace is the last place left.

Closing my eyes once more, I reluctantly extended my mage sight into the palace……

After awhile, I opened my eyes. Strange? He’s not in there either?

‘Could he have left the city?’ I thought bewilderedly. ‘Well, that’s a good thing, ‘cause that way Judge won’t be able to find him.’

“Tell me, is it the Sun Knight’s duty to daydream in the city square?”

“Of course not! I’m always very busy!” I disagree on automatically reflex, but when I raised my head, I was stunned, for here was the very person I’ve been looking for, standing right in front of me!

Standing before me, Roland looked exactly the same as he did when we were small, only taller.

He had a slender build and a handsome face; his expression was as serious as ever. Even just standing there, he gave off an air that screamed, ‘don’t mess around with me’. I bet even if he were to smile he would still feel a little oppressive, but most people would not mind said feeling, for Roland is just that kind of natural-born leader, where people would willingly place themselves under his command.

But the most astonishing thing was the fact that Roland looked…… human!

He looked completely different from his previously faded appearance. If Roland were to appear in front of me for the first time in this form, I would definitely have recognised him the moment I clapped eyes on him.

I asked him bewilderedly, “You… you’ve been resurrected?”

But the moment the words were out of my mouth I felt like hitting myself. He’s already dead and had become a Death Knight, there’s no way he could have been resurrected!

“No, of course I haven’t been resurrected.” Roland still answered me seriously, despite my idiotic question. He then asked politely, “May I sit down?”

“Oh, sure.” My thoughts were in a mess. ‘If Roland had not been resurrected, how is it that he looks so human?’ The suspicion that he was actually a figment of my imagination crept into my mind.

Roland sat down beside me and smiled, “Creus, you’re still the same as ever. Whenever you come across a difficult problem, you would sit in public places like this and get lost in your thoughts.”

‘That’s because I was using my mage sight, I wasn’t daydreaming!’

“Why do you look like this now?” I just couldn’t resist asking.

Roland merely held up his left hand. My attention was instantly drawn to a ring on his middle finger. Roland never wore jewellery of any kind, especially one like this pink heart-shaped ring. Anyone could tell that this ring is just a cheap fake. So right away I knew that this ring must have some powerful ability, for him to willingly put it on.

Roland gave a small cough and explained, “Pink gave me this Life Ring. It gives the illusion that I’m a human; but this illusion can be easily broken by Holy Light.”

“Yeah, I can tell that this belonged to Pink…… Did she give you the sword too?”

I never would have guess that a silly ring like this would possess such an impressive ability.  The next time I visit Pink I’ll have to take a closer look at that panda bear doll sitting in the corner. Who knows if that panda bear is capable of summoning the Demon King, or something like that?

“No. The sword is a family heirloom. Although, I had never thought I would one day use this wicked sword,” said Roland with a depreciating smile. “Who would have thought that I would become a Death Knight and use this sword. I really have become one of the wicked……”

“Stop!”

I held out a hand to stop him, as I had seen a group of five holy knights and two priest entering the city square. Although they might not believe that the Death Knight would appear in such a crowded place, Judge has always been a cautious person who would leave nothing to chance, so it would be just like him to insist on checking public places like this.

This is bad! The Death Knight himself is sitting right beside me!

Roland might currently look like a human, but I could still faintly sense the dark aura he emitted. The priests might be able to sense it too…… Uh oh! One of the priests had looked in our direction before turning to point us out to the holy knights beside him. Looks like he’s asking them to inspect us.

“Roland, leave now, quickly!” I hissed at him.

Roland merely looked at the holy knights, but made no move to get up and leave, continuing to sit there calmly.

Oh dear, not only are the holy knights heading in our direction, all seven of them had varying degrees of stern looks on their face. Could they have already discovered Roland?

My heart was beating frantically, as my mind scrambled as to how I would explain this to my own holy knights, when all seven of them had reached Roland…… and proceeded to ignore him, coming to a halt in front of me.

The leader of the holy knights looked at me warily and said, “Please lower you hood.”

My face was expressionless as I lowered my hood. Beside me, Roland had turned his head away, but I could tell from his shaking shoulders that he was laughing.

“Ah! Sun Knight?!” All seven of them cried out, startled. I bet even if they had discovered the Death Knight, they would not have been as shocked as they were by me.

I asked morosely, “Could it be that this Sun is no longer blessed by the God of Light? That her holy aura no longer wraps surround this Sun, causing my fellow brother holy knights to mistake this Sun for the dark filled Death Knight?”

“N-no! It’s not that at all!” The seven seemed to move in perfect harmony, heads shaking left and right together.

“Then could it be that this Sun’s activities or behaviour were too sneaky, that my brothers would mistake this Sun for the hiding Death Knight?”

Once again, all seven holy knights shook their heads at 180 degrees, in unison.

“Then, could it be that this was all just one of the God of Light’s lovely misunderstandings?”

All seven of them shook their head again…… before realising what I said, their faces showed various expressions of horrified looks, and then hurriedly nodded their heads forcefully.

“If this really was one of Her beautiful misunderstandings, then this Sun will not keep you here. My brothers, please continue as before to carry out Her divine biddings.”

The seven holy knights hurriedly saluted me and after I had calmly saluted them back, they immediately turned and fled as if I, the Sun Knight, was even more frightening than the Death Knight himself.

It was probably my expressionless face that had scared them so. The ever-smiling Sun Knight suddenly stopped smiling? Even if my face had not been expressionless, the lack of a smile would probably still be very frightening!

Looks like I’ll have to watch myself carefully from now on, and make sure I keep my smile on in front of others, or else rumours of this generation’s Sun Knight and his bipolar attitude might spread around.

I raised back my hood and turned to Roland, only to see his surprised expression. “Creus, since when do you speak in such a cultured manner?” he asked.

“… … Don’t ask.”

“Roland, it’s best if you go back to Pink’s place and lay low for a while. That priest earlier must have sensed some of your dark aura, but it’s just that you were sitting here so openly that they mistook me to be the Death Knight.”

Roland kept quiet for a moment before saying, “I only came here to say goodbye to you, Creus. After this, we’ll be enemies.”

“Enemies…… I see. You do hate me then.”

I looked down sadly.

Roland had never been one to hold grudges for long. I had hoped that Roland would have forgiven me for stealing his position as the next Sun Knight. But……

Roland asked me curiously, “Why would I hate you?”

“You don’t hate me?!” I looked up at him and exclaimed. “Then why did you slash at me the moment you appeared?!”

Roland suddenly looked apologetic, and said, “Back then, Pink had told me to send the undead to you. I’d merely wanted to greet you, but as I was still new to my state and unused to my increased strength and speed, I couldn’t control myself and accidently hit you. I’m really sorry about that.”

“… …” I then asked exhaustedly, “Then why did you say that you’ll come back for me?”

“I had always intended to come back and say goodbye to you,” said Roland matter-of-factly.

Roland, you dimwit! Are you really, truly aware of your new status as a Death Knight?! I was nearly killed by your ‘hello’. And your ‘goodbye’ had incriminated me as a person who likes torturing people to death!

“Roland…… if not for the fact that a person cannot die twice, I would have killed you again!”

I gritted my teeth in annoyance. He’d sliced at me, well ok, fine. But he just had to say such a misleading sentence, ‘Sun Knight, I’ll come back for you’. That sentence had led to such a misunderstanding that I could have bashed my head in on the Holy Temple’s cross, and still no one would have believed my innocence.

“You can burn me,” said Roland calmly. “After I’ve killed my enemy, I will let you burn me.”

“I was only joking,” I said with a frown. I had forgotten how seriously Roland took everything. You couldn’t even joke around with him.

“But I am serious. If not because I have to kill that person first, I would never have allowed an evil being such as myself to continue existing in this world.”

“Was it the Crown Prince who had killed you?”

Upon hearing this, Roland looked stunned for a moment, before he slowly nodded.

It was really the Crown Prince?

My mood abruptly turned for the worse. “You won’t succeed. The Judge Knight is not as lax—ahem! Not as ‘kind’ as I am. He will definitely guard the Crown Prince well, covering all possible areas. You won’t be able to succeed.”

As Roland slowly turned around to look at me, I could see his eyes changing as he got more and more worked up over it, slowly changing back into that of a Death Knight’s flame-eyes. He said coldly, “No matter how slim the chances are, I will kill him.”

“Roland, it is against a knight’s principles to hold grudges.”

“No, Creus. I’m not going to kill him because of a grudge,” said Roland icily. “I’m going to kill him because he is a habitual offender. It was precisely because I could not stand it any longer and tried to expose him, that I became another of his many victims. Leaving that kind of person in this world would only cause many more to suffer my same fate.”

I was speechless. The Crown Prince, who always had a gentle smile for anyone, was actually such a monster?

Roland abruptly stood up, the dark aura seeping profusely through his disguise. “I must kill him. I can’t let him harm anyone else!”

“You’re obsession is to kill him?” I asked. It’ll be difficult, if that really was the case. There is no way to reach a compromise with obsessions.

“Obsession?” asked Roland.

“That’s right. Last time, you had nearly turned into a Death Lord. For you to reach this stage so quickly in such a short time, your obsession must have been something near impossible to achieve. If it is to kill the Crown Prince, then that really is a near impossible thing.”

I shook my head sadly, but caught Roland eying me strangely. “What is it?”

“Nothing. I should go now. I had lost control of my dark aura just now, and others must have noticed it. Creus, the next time we meet, I hope you will come as the Sun Knight.”

With that, Roland left without looking back once.

I continued to sit there in a daze, feeling torn over Roland and this whole matter. I cannot stop Roland from killing him now, so what should I do?

Should I reveal his plans? If I do that, no matter how strong Roland is he won’t be able to succeed, with all of the Holy Knights and the Royal Guards stopping him. He won’t even be able to escape. When that happens, as the Sun Knight I will have to personally drag him to the stake and burn him to ashes.

Or, I could not reveal his plans and let him kill the ruler. With his own impressive abilities and the Life Ring disguising him, he’d probably succeed……

Idiot Roland! Why didn’t you just keep quiet about your plans and come meet me after you’ve killed him?! Why did you have to specially come and tell me of your intentions, leaving me with such a hard choice to make?! I should just tie you up and burn you to ashes right now for throwing such a dilemma at me.

At that moment, the sounds of many hurried footsteps interrupted my thoughts. I looked up to see a group of holy knights approaching, too late to do anything anymore. I shook my head disapprovingly. Only arriving just now, you guys won’t even be able to pick up his trail anymore!

“There he is!”

Huh? Did Roland turn back? I looked around the plaza searching for his figure, but I couldn’t see him……

“You! Pull down that hood!” The holy knights marched over to me and shouted at me fiercely.

“… …”

How many times are you idiots going to mistake me for the Death Knight?!!

Book 1: Rule 9 – The Sun Knight’s Ninth Rule: “If you want to know a secret, ask a woman.”

An old and dilapidated wooden house stood at the end of a street, so shaky it looked ready to fall apart at the slightest gust of wind. A door slowly squeaked open, revealing a little girl’s pink face. She held in her hand a humongous pink strawberry lollipop even larger than her head.

“Pink, I agree to become your apprentice and learn the arts of necromancy.” I said seriously.

The little girl was stunned for a moment, before crooking her finger at me-indicating for me to bend down closer.

‘Huh? Don’t tell me that there’s some kind of ceremony to undergo before becoming one’s student?’ I thought doubtfully as I bent down. Pink crooked her little finger again, and I moved my face closer.

She then placed her hand on my forehead and cried out, “Oh no! Sun, your forehead’s so hot, you’re burning up! No wonder you were saying such ridiculous things!”

“That’s because you’re a corpse-your hands are icy cold……”

Pink withdrew her hand and looked at it for a while before comprehending, “Oh, you’re right. I had nearly forgotten that I’m already dead, but……”

Pink gave me an unconvinced look, “You sure you’re not running a fever?”

I rolled my eyes and said exasperatedly, “Thanks to the divine blessings of the God of Light, I have not had a fever since I was ten.”

“Oh.” Pink nodded. “Then what is it that you need my help for? You must be really determined this time, to even sell off your ‘alive self’.”

 I hurried to clarify the terms of our deal, “I’m only agreeing to learning necromancy from you, but I’m still going to continue on as the Sun Knight!”

“A Sun Knight studying part time as necromancy apprentice?” Pink shook her head sombrely and sighed, “Only you would dare to do something so heretical. Are you not afraid of your God of Light striking you down with lightning in punishment?”

“I believe that the God of Light will understand my difficult position.” I replied solemnly, before adding, “Besides, Her Holiness has not made an appearance for the past few hundred years, I don’t think Her Holiness will pop in for such a small thing.”

Pink just licked her lollipop, neither agreeing nor refuting me.

I suddenly felt a chill go up my spine and seriously thought about the odds of the God of Light smiting me down …

‘It shouldn’t be that bad!’

I shook my head forcefully and asked Pink, “How ‘bout it? Do you accept?”

“So, what is it that you want me to do?”

“I wish……”

~O~O~O~O~

After putting forward my request to Pink, I walked back to the Holy Temple-of course, with my cloak and hood on. If one more person mistakes me for the Death Knight, I will turn them into a Death Knight!!

Next, I had a request for another person. Luckily, this person is much easier to settle than Pink, so I wasn’t overly concerned.

I smiled at a holy knight I met along the hallways of the Holy Temple and asked, “My holy knight comrade, the God of Light watches over us high up in the sky, smiling down upon the people. It is such a bright and beautiful day, and I pray that you also bask in the warmth of the God of Light.”

The holy knight I had stopped looked extremely thrilled, and replied in a respectful and worshipful tone. “And may you also feel the God of Light’s warmth, Sun Knight. Today’s weather really is quite good. I hope we can successfully catch the Death Knight.”

I nodded my head and said, “My brother, would you know of where our brother, the Storm Knight, is basking in under the God of Light’s blessings?”

The holy knight got a little nervous and asked uncertainly, “Err…… May I ask if you are asking where the Storm Knight is?”

I nodded.

The holy knight let out a breath of relief and answered, “The Storm Knight has been in his room for the past three days going over official documents.”

“My brother, this Sun is grateful for this conversation filled with compassion and goodwill. May you always receive Her Holiness the God of Light’s warm blessings.”

“Sun Knight, you are too kind!” The holy knight gazed at me with worshipful eyes as I left.

I immediately walked up to Storm’s room and knocked on his door.

After a while the door gradually opened at a snail’s pace, and a pale gaunt face befitting a Death Knight revealed its self. If it weren’t for the fact that Death Knights did not have dark eye bags, I would have believed that Storm had become Sprouting Leaf City’s second Death Knight.

I was about to open my mouth to speak when Storm raised a hand to stop me and said faintly, “Sun, please use the simplest and most direct speech possibly, or else I guarantee you I’ll fall asleep within three seconds.”

I thought about it for a moment before saying two words. “Help me.”

“Can I refuse?” Storm moved those pale and bloodless lips of his and asked.

I thought again for a moment and shortened it to one word, “Order.”

“…… how direct.”

After telling Storm what I needed of him, I left to carry out the next thing on my agenda, not feeling the least worried for Storm even though he looked like he could collapse at any moment.

But there’s nothing to worry about, for even if he were to collapse and die from fatigue, he would rise again as a Death Knight and finish off all his work. That’s just how he is; a complete workaholic, completely opposite from his image of the carefree Storm Knight.

I was about to sneak off to some hidden spot and change into my ‘Slayer’ identity when I heard the sounds of many footsteps marching perfectly in step, as well as the quiet exchange of words. Such neat and orderly marching could only come from the Judge Knight’s Division.

As expected, the Judge Knight appeared around the corner leading twenty or so holy knights. He said to me as usual, “May you one day understand the God of Light’s stern and merciless way, Sun Knight.”

“Tonight, the Death Knight will go to the Royal Palace seeking revenge.” I spoke in an undertone.

Upon hearing that, the Judge Knight halted in his footsteps. Even though he had stopped so suddenly, the twenty something holy knights behind him had also immediately stopped, not showing a single bit of disorder among their ranks. 

Judge merely waved his hand, and his team quietly went around us and continued on without a single word.

When everyone had left, Judge asked me without delay, “You are sure?”

“Mm-hmm.” I nodded. Roland is not one to dilly-dally about. If he said he’s going to do it, then he’s definitely going to do it straight away.

Judge looked at me a little suspiciously and asked, “You’ve decided to catch him?”

“I am the Sun Knight, Judge Knight.” I said to him calmly. “The Sun Knight would never allow a dead person to interfere in matters of the living, even if that living person were to have committed an unforgivable sin.”

The Judge Knight nodded and calmly answered, “Tonight, I’ll send some of our knights to hide themselves within the Royal Palace and protect that person, as well as catch the Death Knight at the same time.”

I glanced at him, “Not bad. You’ve already found out who had killed Roland?”

“Nng” Judge explained simply, “I arrested the execution site’s groundskeeper and questioned him about the corpse’s condition, and concluded that the Death Knight was indeed tortured to death. I then asked Storm to investigate the Duke of Ceylan and his third son, as well as to which of the nobility are fond of torturing. From there, I had three suspects-His Majesty the King, His Highness the Crown Prince, and his grace the Duke of Ceylan.”

Poor Storm, not only was he grilled by me, he also had to undergo a second round from Judge. No wonder he looked so terrible.

“Then how did you determine which one of them was the guilty party?” I asked curiously.

“Actually, based on the current events, I could already deduce who it was, but to confirm it I had Frost-who had seen the Death Knight-pick out a holy knight who looked the most similar to the Death Knight, had his face look paler, before bringing him along to pay a visit to each of the three suspects. The one who acted suspiciously would be the guilty person.”

Judge shook his said and sighed, “Although deceiving people in such a way is not the proper way to do things, it cannot be denied that it is a very effective method. It was quite easy to find out which one was the perpetrator. He was quivering in his shoes the moment he saw the dressed up knight.”

“Not bad!” I admired. I had only realised who the real perpetrator was after speaking with Roland.

“Sun, seeing as you’ve made your decision, the Sun Knight Division and the Judge Knight Division will disguise themselves within the Royal Palace tonight,” judge decided. “After all, even though his crime is unforgivable, he still cannot be harmed in the slightest, or there’ll be a big uproar to deal with later.”

“I agree, but I wish to bring along Blaze and Earth too.”

Judge did not understand this. “I can understand the reason for bringing along Earth, as his defensive abilities would be helpful when protecting that person, but Blaze’s specialty lies with the spirits, not the undead.”

I shook my head in disagreement. “You may not be aware of this, but I’ve met Roland. He’s very close to becoming a Death Lord. If he’s unable to exact his revenge, he might become a Death Lord there and then, and be able to summon various dark creatures, malicious spirits being one of them. It would be troublesome for us then.”

“Hmm. You are more familiar with the undead. You are very thorough.” Judge nodded agreeing, before bidding me farewell, “May your friend find peace soon.”

And with that, he was gone.

I watched as Judge left before looking out the window. It was still quite bright outside. Good. It’s still early enough for me to finish my business before coming back to assemble my Sun Knight Division.

~O~O~O~O~

After settling things with Storm and Judge, I had only one thing left to do-infiltrate the Royal Palace and search out the location where Roland’s torture had taken place.

Since Roland had said that that person was a frequent offender, he should have a place especially built for torturing people. If I can find this place and obtain evidence, I can then testify against him and his crimes.

Now, the Royal Palace may be heavily guarded, but I’ve actually already been to the place several times before.

Every so often that fat King would stir up some trouble, and every single time I would be ordered to visit the palace to nag at him. Of course, I would always drag along one of the Twelve Holy Knights with me to act the good cop, bad cop-obviously they’re the bad cop, with the role of threatening the King, while I, the ever kind and forgiving Sun Knight, play the good cop.

Usually, Storm’s the one whom I would drag along, but on particularly serious matters, Judge may put in an appearance.

Besides coming here to ‘advice’ that fat pig, I also often visit the palace as the Holy Temple’s representative to attend social events, such as, the Queen’s birthday celebration, the coming-of-age dance ball of some Duke’s daughter, the Prince’s first hunting trip,… etc. etc.

In short, the Sun Knight is the Church of Light’s walking billboard.

And not to mention, the Queen is my teacher’s foster mother; my teacher had even grown up with the Crown Prince as brothers. That was why my teacher had often brought me along to the palace when he visited. A nice way of putting it would be that he was there to build up good relationships between the Church of Light and the court; in actuality, my teacher was having tea with the Queen, the Princesses and the women in court while exchanging gossip……

Ahem! So, in the twenty-three years that I’ve lived so far, the place that I’m most familiar with after the Holy Temple would be the Royal Palace.

Therefore, the Royal Palace’s security is nothing to me, for I could simply walk through the front gates without needing to come up with any excuses. Why, the royal guards would even salute me respectfully without questioning my appearance!

“Dragon’s Holy Robe, in the name of the dragon’s successor, I order you to activate!”

After finding a hidden spot and putting on my black and silver ‘bloodthirsty clothes’, I prepared to sneak into the palace and locate that torture chamber……

‘Master, this lowly one is the Dragon’s Holy Robe, not the bloodthirsty clothes.’

“Argh! You scared me.” I patted my chest, ‘don’t worry, don’t worry it’s just the clothes’. “Don’t suddenly speak out like that; you nearly had me discovered by someone.”

‘Yes, Master.’

You might think that it is an unwise decision to wear a black outfit in bright daylight, but at least it’s better this way than to wear my Sun Knight uniform and be discovered sneaking around the palace grounds, up to no good.

Besides, even though it’s still bright daylight, there’re all kinds of ridiculously huge decorations placed all over the hallways that can provide cover for me to duck into. For example, this flower vase even taller than a man (can one even put flowers in it?); or that super-heavy armour that no knight would be able to move in (what’s the point of forging it if no one’s going to wear it?); and many others.

And if I really can’t hide from them, well that’s alright too.

My teacher had often said to me, “My child, do not labour under the misconception that the Royal Palace’s walls are thick and solid. It might have been so at the beginning of its construction, but know that every king wishes to have a secret escape route that only he knows about, as well as a secret room where he can carry out some unspeakable deed…… Now, after several generations, there’ll be as many secret hallways and as many secret rooms. These secret pathways and secret rooms may all be called ‘secret’, but don’t actually believe that they’re really such a big secret. Believe me, even the current king may not know all the secret hallways and secret rooms as well as his queen and the princesses do.”

“Then how is it that you know of them?” I asked.

“The princess told me.”

“But why would the princess want to tell you?”

“How am I supposed to secretly meet with her if she doesn’t tell me……? Ahem! You’re too young to need to know about these things. Just memorize all these secret entrances and hallways properly.”

“Yes, teacher.”

Now that I think back on it, my teacher was one slick guy. Why?

Well, back then, there were only two princesses. One was almost fifty years old-the King’s unmarried sister, while the other was only fifteen years old-the King’s daughter; my teacher had been in his thirties at that time.

I wonder if he had seduced the young princess, or been the one seduced instead…… Cough! I digress. The point is, I’m guessing that the torture chamber should be one not too far away from that person’s bedchambers.

I’m hoping that he had used one of the pre-existing secret rooms instead of tunnelling a new one. After all according to the number of secret rooms and escape routes my teacher had told me about, the whole palace should be just about hollow already. Even the Royal Architectures would think twice before digging a new one in fear of the Royal Palace collapsing.

So, I sneaked along the hallways, slipping into a secret hallway for a while before exiting, only to enter another. On the way, I had nearly bumped into a couple lost in each other’s arms and lips. Fortunately, they were too engrossed and had not noticed me, so I quickly turned to enter another secret hallway ……

Hold on! I frowned as I thought back to the kissing couple. One of them…… had looked rather like the princess?

You know, the fifteen year old princess I had mentioned earlier…? She’s about twenty-five now, and is still dragging on with her marriage. I can see why now-she’s already got a lover…… That guy must not have a very high status, or else they wouldn’t have had to sneak around to meet each other in fear of the king’s disapproval.

Looks like my teacher was right. These secret hallways and rooms aren’t really a secret, and are instead more often used by lovers for clandestine meetings.

As I crept along the secret hallways, I considered the secret rooms and hallways around that person’s bedchambers. There are quite a number of them, but only three had entrances hidden in his bedchambers. Two of them could be entered by another entrance somewhere else, but one of them was a closed one, with the exit hidden in the bedchambers being the only one.

I decided to look around at the other two secret hallways first.

I’d been walking around in the maze of secret pathways for some time, but thankfully I have an excellent memory and was able to easily find my way out. Before long, I had stepped into an empty secret room. According to my memory, this would be one of the places I was aiming at.

But from the thick cobwebs covering the whole room (even thicker than my cloak!), this wasn’t it.

Next, I had originally decided to exit into the bedchambers from here and enter the second secret room from there, but as I looked at these layers upon layers of cobwebs, I shudder to think of having to go through all of them, wishing I could just burn them away with a fire spell.

But there are plenty of sorcerers in the Royal Palace. If I were to let loose with a magic spell they would immediately sense it. So with no choice left to me, I pushed on ahead through the cobwebs, trying my best to keep myself from touching them. Despite my best efforts, I was covered with cobwebs by the time I finally made my way to the exit. I bent down for the hidden door……

“It’s sealed shut.”

I felt like crying at this frustration. I should have anticipated this. How could pathways leading to the royal bedchambers have been left unguarded or unsealed?

“I hope the other entrance hasn’t been sealed off as well.”

I hoped, as I made my way once more through the winding hallways. To my surprise, this secret pathway was much smaller at only half my height, forcing me to crawl through on my hands and knees. At the end of the tunnel, I entered a small room only two meters high and two meters across. There’s no way any torturing could have been done here. It would have been a difficult task to even try to squeeze in two people into this room!

I raised my head to look at the ceiling, for the exit leading to the person’s bedchambers was a trapdoor in the ceiling. Thankfully this one hadn’t been sealed. I guess this room was a better-kept secret, that even the bedchambers’ owner was unaware of its existence. I gently lifted the trapdoor (how heavy!) and peeked around the room. Good! No one’s around.

I tried to further lift open the trapdoor but it wouldn’t budge further. I pushed with all my strength, lifting it up and pushing it to the side, before I was finally able to climb out. By then, my clothes were drenched in my sweat from all my effort.

I stood there panting, trying to catch my breath. I doubt that I would have been able to lift the trapdoor were it not for the boosted strength the Dragon’s Holy Robe had given me.

After getting back my breath, I looked around the room before realising that there was a huge marble cabinet placed atop the trapdoor. It was even taller than me by ten or so centimetres-no wonder it was so heavy!

But now is not the time to complain. The bedchambers’ owner might come in at any time, I’ll have to hurry.

I quickly found the hidden entrance to the third room behind a wardrobe and entered, hoping I had not wasted a whole afternoon for naught……

Immediately upon opening the concealed door, the smell of blood greeted me, accompanied by the wafting smell of rotting flesh.

A thick piece of cloth was blocking the entrance, but it could not block the smell from coming through. I knew immediately that I had found the place.

I stepped forward and pushed aside the cloth……

I was stunned.

I had already found the proof, so I should leave immediately, but I couldn’t do anything except stare in shock around the whole room.

There wasn’t a single body lying within, and neither was there any blood or flesh splattered around the room. Instead, the room was quite clean; the shackles on the wall and the torture equipments were even freshly oiled, shining in the dark.

And in the middle of the room laid a shiny wooden bed.

It was probably impossible to wash out all the blood; layers upon layers of blood had splattered and spilled onto the bed until there was a solidified layer of black blood shining there.

At first glance, the surrounding four walls and floor looked spotless, but the horrible screams of the tortured dead bled out from the walls, lending a chilling glimpse of hell; the smell of blood and rotting flesh coming from all around.

This seemingly clean room was overfilled with the dirtiest and darkest thoughts of depravity; the air filled with the sorrowful and hateful cries of the many victims.

I couldn’t help myself from trailing a finger in the black shiny layer on the bed. The shiny black layer was even harder than I had thought, only a little reddish-black had came off on my finger.

Roland’s blood… must be intermixed among them.

“Roland, I can understand now why you had become a Death Knight, why you are so determined to kill him; if you had died in such a place, it’s understandable.”

I could feel my eyes get misting, but I did not wish to hold back my tears. Roland and I were both orphans. Now that he had died in such a horrible way, I’m probably the only person who would mourn for his death.

Only I would shed tears for him.

Book 1: Rule 10 – The Sun Knight’s Tenth Rule: “Serving out justice is the meaning for the Sun Knight’s existence.”

Judge and I had explained the whole situation with the Crown Prince, for only a fool would hope to secretly hide close to fifty holy knights within the Royal Palace without alerting anyone. The Crown Prince had grudgingly agreed. Looks like he had already realized the gravity of the situation.

And so, a group of holy knights put on the uniforms of the royal knights and patrolled the area, while another group disguised themselves as servants, hiding all around the palace. There were already a huge number of people going in and out of the palace daily, so it was a simple thing to insert fifty more people without alerting anyone.

Judge was lying in bed, pretending to be the person Roland was after, while I had to hide away in the wardrobe. To hide my strong holy aura, the Pope had to design a special seal to seal away my aura and had stuck the seal on the wardrobe, hence why I am currently lying in the wardrobe.

Not that I’m criticizing or anything, but the royalty really are a different breed from us. Just this one wardrobe is half the size of my room; the flooring of the wardrobe is lined with crushed velvet, so soft that I simply couldn’t resist lying down on it. I then grabbed a hanging cloak and covered myself with it…… Ahh… how comfy! I started feeling drowsy; this wardrobe is even more comfortable than my own bed.

Thank goodness I did not have to take Judge’s position and lie on the bed, if just a wardrobe is enough to make me sleepy, what more a bed fit for royalty? I’d probably still be asleep when Roland comes in slicing me in half……

“Sun? Sun!”

“Huh?” I flipped over onto my other side. ‘What is it? How noisy! I’m sleeping here!’

The person outside was silent for a moment before pounding heavily on the wardrobe door.

I leapt to my feet, startled wide awake, and anxiously asked, “What is it? Is Roland here?!”

“Not yet.” Judge’s low and deep voice could be heard from outside. “But I’m worried that even if he were to come bursting in you would have fallen asleep and not notice him at all.”

“Eh…… hahahah! Of course not!” I l gave a forced laughed. ‘It is possible. Judge really knows me too well!’

“Night has only just fallen, Roland shouldn’t be arriving so soon. To avoid you falling asleep, why don’t you talk about him?”

I kept quite for a while. I had no idea where to begin, but Judge was a patient man, he did not push me to speak. In the end, I let out a deep sigh and began reminiscing about my past.

“The first time I had met Roland was at the Selection for the future Twelve Holy Knight, when only ten boys were left in the selection.

“You might or might not be aware of it, but that event was one of the single most widely betted on event in a long time. Practically everyone had placed betted on the outcomes for the next generation’s Twelve Holy Knights.”

“I know.” From outside came Judge’s reply. It sounded fainter; he’d probably lain back on the bed.

I dared not lie back on the carpeted ground and instead leaned back against the wardrobe’s door. I asked Judge, “Do you still remember the odds against you?”

“I never noticed.”

I gave a chuckle at that. “You and Roland are equally serious, spending all your time on sword practice! I still remember though, your odds were 1:1.083. Even if anyone had betted on you, they would not have won much.”

“You remember the numbers very clearly.” I could hear a hint of wonder from him.

‘Well, can’t be help, I have an excellent memory.’

I continued on with my story, “Roland’s odds were 1:1.052, even higher than yours. That is to say, the probability of him being selected as the next Sun Knight was even higher than the probability of you being selected for the next Judge Knight.”

“But he wasn’t chosen,” said Judge evenly.

“That’s right, he wasn’t. Instead, a kid with the odds of 1:563 had been chosen. Back then, a number of people had become millionaires just from betting on me.” I said a little deprecatingly.

Outside, Judge replied calmly, “You weren’t that bad. Your holy spells and written test results were among the best. Outsiders just didn’t understand holy spells and the written examinations.”

Even though it had all happened a long time ago, I still felt very glad and relieved at Judge’s comforting words. ‘That’s right! I wasn’t that bad! It was only the sword skills that I did a little poorly at.’

“However, your sword skills were really terrible.”

‘Hey! You didn’t have to add that last sentence!’

“Anyway, because everyone was certain that Roland was going to be the next Sun Knight, and I was the least likely candidate, we were able to get along well with each other. He would often help me, like……”

“Help me fight, help me scale the walls and buy me blueberry pastries, help me chase away that dog that bit me, etc. etc.” Judge gave a little sigh at this. “Creus, you really haven’t changed at all.”

“Hahahah……” I laughed weakly. ‘Oh, that’s right, since Roland left, Judge had taken his place.’

“And so because you took his place, Roland now wants to harm you and frame you?”

“No. He wasn’t trying to harm me at all.” I felt like crying when I recalled that incident. “He was just being incredibly clueless. Till now, he still has no idea that he had accidently started rumours about me being his murderer. He believes that he had only accidently cut me.”

“Speaking of the rumours, I have a suspicion that……” Judge suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence.

I was wondering about it when I heard a familiar voice from outside, except now, it was filled with hatred.

“I’ve said this before that I, Roland, will come back for you, Your Majesty.”

Roland?! How is it possible? How did he get here…… Ah! It must be the secret tunnels, damn it! I hadn’t thought that Roland would know of the tunnels too.

“Y-you are not the King!”

Have we been discovered?

I quickly pulled open the wardrobe and leapt out while letting out a burst of holy light. This was our signal to the others lying in wait outside. Let it not be said that our holy knights are not alert and observant, for the holy light had barely faded away when Blaze Knight and the Judge Division had come leaping in through the windows on both sides of the room, while Earth Knight led my Sun Division in from the doors.

Judge had also leapt out of bed, his Divine Judgement Sword in hand.

Roland was surprised at first, but then he finally turned to look at me, saying in a disbelieving voice, “Creus……. How could it be?!”

“Roland, you should know that I cannot allow you to kill anyone.” I said a little sadly as I looked at my old friend.

“But… I had clearly told you……”

I interrupted him, nodding, “You told me that your enemy was the Crown Prince.”

“But,” Roland interrupted angrily, “this is the King’s bedchambers!”

“Correct. It was only until the moment you personally told me that your enemy was the Crown Prince, that I was a hundred percent certain that your real target was His Majesty the King. Roland, you’ve always been as terrible at telling lies as I had been at sword fighting.”

“You-……” Roland was stunned speechless.

“Besides, I may not know for certain if the Crown Prince has a hobby of torturing people to death, but I am certain that if he did do such things, we would never have discovered it for at least another ten years.”

I gave a shrug and said, “The Crown Prince is not an idiot. If he had really killed a person, he would definitely have destroyed the body once and for all, and not order one of his knights to dispose of the body for him instead.

“Moreover, rumours were later started saying that I had tortured the Death Knight and then killed him. It’s understandable if it had only mentioned me killing the Death Knight; as everyone had heard you saying that you would come back for me, it’s reasonable that they would conclude that I was the one who had killed you. But, the rumours had specifically mentioned that I had ‘tortured you to death’. Now that’s much more perplexing.”

As I carefully watched Roland’s face, I could tell from his baffled expression that he had no idea of the rumours. But that’s alright; I wasn’t solely explaining it for him.

“The only people who could have known that the Death Knight was tortured to death would be the Death Knight himself, and the guilty party who had done it in the first place.”

I took another glance at Roland; the latter was frowning as if trying very hard to understand what I was saying. I continued on regardless, “However, the rumours had spread too far too quickly. I do not believe that the Death Knight was the one who had started them. After all, it’s a little hard for the Death Knight to walk out into the streets and start gossiping with people.

“Therefore, the rumours incriminating me must have come from the guilty party themselves.” I gave a small smile and turned to look at Judge. “The thing that you were about to mention earlier was this, right? Would you like to add anything, Judge Knight?”

Judge merely gave me a look, as if saying ‘Stop playing around’, but he did further elaborate on the subject, “Originally, the Holy Temple would have most likely dropped all investigations the moment we realise that this case involved the royalty; however, the moment the Sun Knight’s reputation was dragged into the case, we had to find out the truth to clear the Sun Knight’s name.”

“That is to say, the guilty party had been stupid to try to incriminate me, forcing the Holy Temple to find out the truth. Doing something so stupid is not something the Crown Prince would have done.”

I gave a cold laugh. “And thinking about it, who else had a grudge against me, who had enough guts and the stupidity to incriminate the Church of Light’s Sun Knight? Why, there could be no other than His Majesty, our dearly beloved King.”

“Bullshit! You impertinent bastard!”

The bookshelves on one of the walls suddenly split in two and moved apart, and the King rush out in a fit of anger. Following him closely was the Crown Prince, frowning deeply. Besides the two were a large number of royal knights, there to protect the two royals.

As I had expected, they were hiding in that sealed secret room that I had first investigated earlier this afternoon. In order to lie here in wait, they had probably lifted the seal on its exit.

Roar!

The moment Roland saw the King, his eyes glowed a deep blood red colour and he rushed in the King’s direction. The King quickly paled and pushed his knights to the front of him while he hid behind them.

“Judge! Earth!”

I quickly reminded them, but there was no need for it as Judge had already raised his sword to block Roland’s attack, while Earth quickly rushed forward to stand in front of the King, his Earth Shield already out and ready.

I started chanting an incantation, and as I chanted the Holy Light filling the room grew stronger and brighter. This Holy Light is the bane of all undead creatures; regardless of Roland’s mastery with the sword, nor the fact he is one of the more powerful kinds of undead; as a Death Knight he would not be able to withstand the Holy Light for long.

Moreover, his opponent is the Judge Knight-the most skilled swordsman among the Twelve Holy Knights.

And true to form, Roland did not last long. His sword was soon sent flying by Judge and he was forced to the ground by the strong Holy Light.

Seeing this, the King-who had been cowering behind his knights all this time-immediately rushed out and stomped on Roland’s head. As he continued to kick and stomp on him, he yelled out, “You rubbish! My killing you was an honour, yet you dare to come back for revenge……?!”

“Father, stop!”

The Crown Prince paled and he tried to pull his father away, but instead his thin, weak body was knocked back. Fortunately, the surrounding knights managed to catch him and so spared this royal personage from the indignity of falling to the ground in front of so many.

“Stop stomping him!!” The Blaze Knight standing by could not hold his peace any longer, and stepped up to push away the King.

“You dared to push me……” The King said shocked, before shouting out, “Royal Knights! My knights, he attacked me! Attack him!”

The royal knights were taken aback by the order, but after only hesitating a second they pulled out their swords and advanced on the Blaze Knight, surrounding him carefully.

Blaze’s face had swiftly turned red in anger, as he shouted, “You dare to point your weapons at me?! Holy Knights, prepare for battle!”

The holy knights aimed their swords at the royal knights.

“Everyone, stop this at once!” the Judge Knight roared angrily.

But the situation had already escalated beyond Judge’s control. His order may have stopped his own division’s knights- they would never go against his orders-but there was still my Sun Division, the hot-tempered Blaze Knight, and the secretly venomous Earth Knight.

The King’s longstanding appalling conduct had not endeared him to the holy knights, and plenty of holy knights already held him in contempt. Yet now, the King had stomped on the fallen Death Knight and openly admitted to killing Roland, as if trying to make everyone detest him even more.

The holy knights and the royal knights glared at each other, both sides ready to attack at any time. Adding fuel to fire to the already tenuous situation, the King grabbed a vase and threw it at the Blaze Knight. It did not hit its target though and smashed instead on the Earth Knight’s Earth Shield.

However, such an insulting action was enough to incite the Sun Division’s wrath. One of them spitted at the royal knights, and before you knew it, both sides had attacked each other. The sounds of weapons clanging on shields and armour filled the room.

I have to admit that, my Sun Division may be a little, OK, extremely hot-tempered, but their strength is definitely top-notch.

I don’t know of it’s because of their piss poor luck or due to their inborn nature, but they often seem to be provoking and getting into fights with people who shouldn’t be trifled with. And because their leader always had a smile on and looked easy to bully, not to mention that he had adopted the ‘Don’t bother me’ attitude with them, they had no choice but to depend on themselves. Utilising their pure strength and rallying together, they would beat up the other party until they (the other party) were fearful of complaining of their treatment.

I ignored the fight going on behind me and walked up to Roland. As I knelt in front of him and looked down at him, I felt my many emotions struggling within me.

“Creus, Creus.”

Roland called out my name softly and lifted his head, his face expressionless. Only the flames within his eyes revealed his inner turmoil as they slowly darkened. He stared at me with those black flame-eyes of his and asked, “Is this what you do after becoming the Sun Knight? Protecting that kind of people?”

I said softly, “Roland, there are many unfair things in this world that we cannot change. As the Church of Light’s Sun Knight, I have to consider many things.”

“Is this your answer?” The flames in Roland’s eyes turned even blacker and blazed even stronger.

“Roland, wake up.” I said with pity in my eyes. “No matter what the King has done, as long as he remains the King, I have to stop you from killing him.”

“Even when he truly deserves death?” Roland pinned me with his eyes, the flames beginning to burn so brightly that the flames were leaping out from his eye sockets.

“Yes, even when he truly deserves death.” I acknowledged frankly.

“What a Sun Knight!” Roland started laughing abruptly, his small chuckles growing into a crazed laughter. The black flames in his eyes had spread out from his sockets and moved across his face like two streams of black tears.

“Argh!”

Without warning, Roland knocked his shoulder into me, sending me flying. At this sudden attack, the Holy Light previously filling the room instantly winked out, and with the Holy Light gone, Roland was able to regain his feet once more.

I slowly got up after being knocked down. Several holy knights from the Judge Division had seen this and stepped forward to help me, but I waved them back, ordering them to continue standing guard at the exits.

Other than the Judge Knight Division, no one else had appeared to notice anything. The whole room was chaotic as a battlefield with the royal knights fighting with Blaze, Earth and my Sun Knight Division. All in all there were about fifty or so people battling it out in the room.

Although both the Crown Prince and the Judge Knight were trying to stop the fights, the King was instead doing his best to stroke the fire. Furthermore, my Sun Division knights were completely ignoring the Judge Knight. Besides, their leader-moi-and the Judge Knight are sworn rivals! It’s perfectly normal for them to disregard the Judge Knight’s orders!

By now, the Crown Prince’s face had turned so pale he looked to be on the verge of fainting; Judge Knight, on the contrary, was so angry his face had turned black.

It is fortunate that this is the king’s royal bedchambers; it was as large as a conference hall. Otherwise, there would not have been enough room for more than fifty people to have out their battle here.

I chanted the incantation for the Holy Light once more, and this time the Holy Light was even brighter than before. But this time I had secretly tweaked it a little so that the Holy Light filled the entire room but stayed clear of Roland.

I needed Roland to become the Death Lord, for only then can my plan succeed.

The bright Holy Light successfully blocked everyone from seeing the Death Knight becoming a Death Lord, as well as covering up Roland’s strong dark aura. No one could see Roland’s form with the Holy Light so glaring; the Judge Division knights probably thought that I was in control of the Death Knight situation and so did not make a move to help me.

As for the rest, well… I doubt those knights so engrossed in their fights had even noticed the Holy Light disappearing and then reappearing again.

The Holy Light was cast by me so it did not block my vision, and I was able to witness firsthand the birth of a Death Lord.

Roland’s body had originally been a pale grey colour, it was latter on that the flames in his eyes had turned a dark black and seeped out from his eyes and down his face, forming two black fiery streaks. Now, those black streaks were reaching down his neck and continued on under his clothes. I may not be able to see what happened as they travelled under his clothes, but I was soon able to see the streaks cover his arms and hands.

Other than the fiery black streaks, the surrounding dark aura was suddenly absorbed into Roland’s body. Next, I could see something slowly growing from his back-a pair of black leathery wings akin to a dragon’s! At the peak of each wing grew a set of sharp claws.

Pale white body covered with markings of black flames and a pair of clawed black wings, is this the Death Lord’s form?

I have to admit that he looks pretty strong and powerful. I can only hope that my plan can stop Roland, or else…… Heheh! I’d probably die just while taking him down.

At this point, Roland opened his eyes and looked down curiously at the markings on his arms, and then twisted around to touch the wings on his back.

It is time!

I ran towards him, and when we were about one meter apart, Roland caught sight of me. His face twisted into an expression of anger as he sent me flying with a swipe of his hand. He was so fast that I hadn’t managed to see him move.

I fell to the ground for the second time today. ‘Shit! It really hurts this time!’ I suspected that my chest had caved in, or even worse, that a hole had been punched right through!

“Sun Knight!”

The Judge Division knights were the first to notice my condition and had cried out, coming forward to help me, but with a wave of his hand and a few incantations, Roland had summoned up all kinds of dark creatures. Zombies, skeletal warriors, blood-sucking human-head spiders, malignant spirits……there were even several that I could not put a name to.

‘Isn’t this a little too powerful?!’ I thought as my face paled. ‘Please don’t tell me my plan has backfired and Roland is going to kill me right here, right now!’

With this summons, the Judge Division were too busy trying to subdue the dark creatures to help me. But it had successfully alerted the two battling parties to what was happening.

The royal knights all cried out “protect the Crown Prince!” …… before realising that each had cried out the same thing and quickly shouted out “protect His Majesty, the King!”

‘That old fart really isn’t popular with everyone, even his own knights!’

And on the other side of the room, my Sun Division had finally noticed me lying on the ground coughing up blood, each showing various different expressions of shock that together they could make a compilation of ‘Shocked and Stunned Faces’.

Struggling through my pain, I gave the order, “Stop the dark creatures, do not let a single one escape from this room.”

“Yes, Sir!” They replied in unison, so disciplined were they that they were completely unrecognizable from the disobedient, unruly group earlier.

Even though my Sun Division might usually mess up everything, they would immediately become as obedient as a little kitten when they receive an order from me. This is because I had once told them that even if I had ordered them to jump off a cliff, they would have to follow my orders and jump. Or else I would personally push them off the cliff and throw down a huge rock after them.

At first, they weren’t really afraid of this threat, for I was the ever-smiling Sun Knight and did not look at all scary. But, when I smiled at them as I kicked two of them off the cliff, and really pushed off two humongous rocks after them, the rest of the division made the decision to jump off the cliff themselves.

My Sun Division knights were better and quicker at subduing the dark creatures than the Judge Division, for the Holy Light and various other holy spells that is a must for the Sun Division is perfect for countering dark creatures.

I felt relieved as I watched my knights getting rid of the dark creatures easily; it was just a matter of time before all the dark creatures are gone.

Blaze and Earth had walked up to stand by my sides, each reaching out a hand to help me up. Once on my feet, I gave them the orders, “Blaze, I leave the spirits to you; Earth, help out anyone who is in trouble. I do not want to see any fatal injuries.”

Both of them nodded, and Blaze entered the melee and started targeting the malignant spirits, Purification Fire burning in each hand.

Earth Knight stood by my side, watching the battle closely, casting his specialty-Earth Shield-whenever anyone was in trouble.

Roland was surrounded by a group of dark creatures. As he stood there he watched the battle going on around him with a small smirk on his lips. This was a complete 180 from his usual expression.

‘Has his anger destroyed all rationality?’ I wondered uneasily.

While thinking that, Roland did something that further supported my theory. He turned the dark aura in the room into a net-like form and placed it around the entire room, trapping everyone inside. He then summoned out a second wave of dark creatures, their numbers rivalling the number of knights in the room.

Ah, no wonder all the books on undead creatures had warned not to allow a Death Lord to be born, or else it’ll be a disaster in the making……

I looked at Judge as he questioned the Crown Prince, “I apologise, your Highness, but the situation has gotten a little out of hand. May I ask how long it’ll take for the rest of the knights and guards to notice the situation here?”

The Crown Prince was white as a bed sheet, yet he still had to fend off his father’s shouts. He smiled wryly as he answered, “Because this…… delicate case…… is not something to be proud of, I had diverted all the guards elsewhere, and had given the order not to approach this area regardless of anything they might hear.”

Upon hearing this, Judge frowned furiously before looking at me. I can guess at what he’s planning. He probably wants me to get out and alert the guards and the Holy Temple, and call for backup.

That would be the best solution, because for one-I’m already injured; two-even if I weren’t injured, my fighting skills were little better than an injured person; three-my whole body is filled with holy aura, and so it would be easy for me to get through the dark aura caging us in.

But I had my own plans. Just one more step left.

“What am I retaining you knights for?! Hurry up and kill that bastard!!” The king was trembling with fury, that he even slapped one of his own knights in anger.

‘My dear beloved King, never before have I wished to kiss that fat sweaty paw of yours as I do now!’

His actions and words are a hundred percent sufficient to further enrage Roland, and it is this moment that I had been waiting for!

Roland was definitely furious. The flames in his eyes were spitting sparks and he gave a low inhuman roar. The dark aura exploded, causing the whole room to shake.

I immediately ran in the king’s direction. I have no idea how Roland is going to break through the royal knights’ defences to get to the King, but I know he’ll definitely do it. I just need to stand in front of the King when he does it.

As I ran, I turned to look back at Roland. It seemed like the air was subtly bending around him, oh no, don’t tell me……

I increased my pace, terrified that I would not reach the King in time.

Roland disappeared.

While everyone else was still staring at the spot where he was last standing, Roland had re-materialised in front of the King. He gave him a cruel smile and said, “Your Majesty, your time is at hand.”

The King was so terrified that his trembling legs could not support him and he dropped to his knees.

That move was a type of spacial magic-Instant Teleportation, shortening the distance between two places and allowing one to move between places in an instant. I never thought the Death Lord would be able to use this magic.

“Roland, stop!”

I was able to reach the King’s front, just as Roland unhesitatingly lifted his sword to swing at the King’s head. I quickly cast a holy spell on myself, giving me Holy Blessings, and took on Roland’s attack.

Even so, my chest was sliced deeply and my blood spurted out, spraying onto Roland. Each drop of my holy blood was deadly to him, and he cried out in pain.

Even though he cut a sorry figure with my blood splattered all over him, his expression had cleared and the flames in his eyes were no longer as dark as before. Upon seeing this, I let out a breath of relief. He’s finally calmed down. I was worried that he would continue on in his rampage!

“Creus……”  Roland raised his head and stared at me with uncomprehendingly, “Just now, why didn’t you stop-……”

“Roland!” I interrupted. ‘Are you kidding?! I can’t let all these people here know that I had purposely allowed Roland to become a Death Lord! They’d tie me up if they found out!’

“I know that you’re determined to kill the person who had killed you, but I also know that you are not doing this for revenge. You’re doing this because you cannot allow a cruel and heartless torturer to rule over this beautiful country of ours. You cannot bear the thought of people undergoing sufferings such as that you had experienced, to prevent future cases of Death Knights like yourself from happening again, right?”

Upon hearing my words, Roland nodded reflexively as they were somewhat similar to his intentions.

I looked at him calmly and said, “If that is so, if the King were to agree to abdicate his throne as a sign of his repentance, you would be satisfied and be able to move on, right Roland?”

“Su-sun Knight, what is the meaning of this?! What are you saying?!” The King cried out, his face red with anger.

Roland frowned at this, unsure at where I’m going with this.

“Roland? You’re Captain Roland?” One of the royal knights suddenly cried out.

The rest of the royal knights seem to know of Roland’s name, for they each took a closer look at the Death Lord’s face, before one, then two,…… many of the knights had soon recognised who the Death Lord was.

The royal knights started murmuring:

“It really is him. It’s that youngest captain of the royal knights.”

“It’s Roland! I used to run patrols with him.”

“He was such a talented knight, how could this be……?”

“Captain Roland! Weren’t you killed in the line of duty while out on a mission?” The knight who had first recognised Roland cried out.

Roland looked at the young knight and his severe face softened. “It’s you, Herle.”

“It really is Captain Roland!” When Herle heard his name called out, he got so worked up that he even dropped his sword. “H-How could you have become a Death Knight?” he asked disbelievingly.

Roland slowly turned back and looked at the King, his look of hatred making it clear to all that this was the person who had killed him. The royal knights looked at the King and looks of realization appeared on their faces. Not one person even doubted Roland’s words, for the King’s usual conduct was already telling everyone that yes, he is the kind of person to do such things.

The King got a little embarrassed, but he turned it into anger and shouted, “Yes, I’m the one who killed him! But he’s one of my knights. He committed a crime so I merely executed him for it, what’s wrong with that?”

Standing beside him, the Crown Prince wearily pressed his face into his hands, as if tired of all the trouble his father kept stirring up.

 “Bullshit! Roland was one of the most law-abiding knights; he would never commit any crime. If not, why don’t you tell us what crime he had committed?”

That knight called Herle must be one of Roland’s fans, to be so daring as to shout back at his king; although, he did look rather shocked by his own outburst the moment he had realised what he had done. However, the other royal knights must have agreed with him, for even though no one else had spoken up, they were looking at the King coldly.

Looks like Roland has a pretty good reputation among the royal knights.

“He-he tried to take liberties with the princess!” The King cunningly picked a crime difficult to investigate, not caring that he was ruining his own daughter’s reputation.

The twenty or so royal knights all revealed strange expressions, same even looked exasperated as they explained, “Everyone knows that Captain Roland avoids women. He doesn’t covet money, he doesn’t gamble, or drink, or get into fights. He spends all his free time doing nothing but swords practice……”

This kind of guy really is hard to incriminate, is what the King must be moaning inside.

“I-as the King of a country, I would never kill one of my knights for no reason. If I said he had seduced the Princess, then he did! ”

The knights fell silent at this, for if the King refused to admit it, they could not do a single thing about it. Then again, even if he had confessed, what could they do? Unless they were to rebel against the country……

“The reason his Majesty the King wanted to kill him was because……”

A lazy voice totally inconsistent with the current tense situation suddenly spoke up, startling everyone. Storm stepped out from behind a large dressing mirror lazily, a small smile on his face even when seeing the Death Lord.

‘Storm is an-gry!’ I thought gleefully.

I could tell, because every time this guy got really angry, he would look calm and relaxed just like now. And then just when the other guy had relaxed his guard, this guy would suddenly launch his attack, striking where it would hurt the most.

Currently, I hold the record for angering him the most times. In the thirteen years I’ve known him, I’ve angered him a grand total of ten times, and was surprise-attacked by him nine times. The reason why I was attacked one time less was because just after angering him that time, I had managed to anger my teacher.

When he had entered my room all calm and relaxed, I was already lying in bed pitifully, wrap from head to toe in bandages like a mummy. He had stood at the foot of my bed quietly for ten minutes, before his pity finally won over his need for revenge (or maybe it was because he could not find a single uninjured spot to hit?) Anyway, in the end he left without doing a single thing.

Well, looks like this torture and murder case had really roused Storm’s anger.

Storm pushed open the mirrored door, slamming it into the wall. If I’m not mistaken I could see cracks forming in the wall…….

“He discovered your habit of torturing the maids and then killing them, and wanted to expose you. Instead, he was imprisoned by you and tortured for three whole months before dying.”

‘Three months? Where the hell did he get such a precise period of time?’ I thought questioningly. ‘Even I didn’t know how long Roland had been tortured for.’

The king’s face twisted into a sinister expression as he shouted, “Lies! All lies! You couldn’t have known how long I had imprisoned Roland!”

Storm nonchalantly replied, “There are no walls that are completely solid, just as there are no secrets that cannot be found out. I even know that the underwear you are currently wearing right now are red, leopard-spotted briefs. Do you think that there’s anything that can be hidden from me? Do you want me to list out the methods of torture you had put him through? Whipping, burning, pulling out his nails, tearing out his tongue, soaking him in salt water, pouring honey onto his wounds and releasing a nest of ants on him…… need I continue?”

The King’s face paled drastically.

Upon hearing again all those torture methods, Roland covered his face and let out a little pained roar as he recalled all the cruelty he had undergone at the hands of the King.

‘Woah!’ I nearly gave Storm a standing ovation. I had only asked for Storm to jump out in the middle and help me reveal the existence of the secret torture room, but I never thought he would be so thorough as to investigate how long Roland had been imprisoned and what methods had been used on him. He had even found out the colour of the King’s underwear!

I sincerely prayed to the God of Light that Storm would not die from overworking.

Storm stepped away from the dressing mirror, and I immediately noticed that he had removed the hanging cloth. With the cloth gone, the rotting smell of flesh and blood immediately drifted out, emphasising the truth of Storm’s words.

By now, the Sun Division had finished with all the dark creatures. Roland had yet to realise that the dark creatures were no longer there to protect him, but no one had moved to attack him.

In fact, judging from everyone’s expressions, they would rather attack the King than attack Roland.

“Blaze, go purify the room of any lingering air of resentment.” I ordered.

Blaze nodded and stepped into the torture chamber, but he did not immediately call out the Purification Fire. Instead, he stood there for a while, dazed. Not a sound could be heard as an oppressive silence fell upon the whole room. Everyone had fallen silent as they watched him. After a while, a long sigh could be heard from Blaze.

The Purification Fire had started to burn when the torture room was suddenly filled with the screams of the dead victims, screaming out their agony as they were tortured mercilessly before dying.

More than a few had paled at these spine chilling screams, and had quickly bowed down their heads while muttering prayers.

Once the screams were over, an even more shocking sound was heard.

“Father, please abdicate the throne and retire, so that you may enjoy your older years in peace.”

The Crown Prince had finally spoken up. His face was weary and looked like he had aged several years, tired of tonight’s entire farce.

“What are you saying?......” The King looked at his son, stunned.

The Crown Prince looked at his father sternly and said, “Please abdicate the throne as a sign of your repentance, and let me take care of you in your retirement.”

Several emotions flickered across the King’s face at his son’s words. As he looked around him, the royal knights just looked back at him coldly; the holy knights looked on in disdain; and standing not too far away was a strong and powerful Death Lord staring at him with hatred in his eyes.

Lastly, he turned to look at me. I turned my head and looked back at him, my golden hair and the angle hiding my expression from everyone else, but allowing him and him alone to see me, and the evil smile on my lips.

His eyes widened as his face paled, suddenly realising who had masterminded this whole act. And this person just so happens to be the leader of the Twelve Holy Knights with the capability of calling out the entire Holy Temple against him. The portly guy was probably even guessing if the Hall of Light had anything to do with all this.

“I-I will abdicate the throne.” In the end, the King announced defeated.

The moment he announced his decision, I quietly slipped a hand into my pocket and crushed a pink heart-shaped glass.

At this moment, something began happening to Roland. His body started floating up and everyone thought he was going to attack, but Roland merely looked down at himself perplexed, as if not understanding why he would be floating up.

The dark aura began receding to be replaced with a soft pink glow.

‘Why is it pink? I had clearly asked for white……’ I grumbled softly.

“Could it be that his obsession has been achieved and that he’s now going to move on?” Some random holy knight who had once flipped through a book about the undead exclaimed.

“Captain Roland!” cried Herle as he looked up at Roland with tears in his eyes.

Roland had a puzzled expression, as if wondering why he would ‘move on’. As he started struggling a little the dark aura grew thicker and the pink glow dimmed a little……

“Death Lord, let me give you a helping hand!” I called out. As I wrapped the Holy Light around Roland, the dark aura diminished, leaving only the pink glow which got brighter and brighter, until a pink light appeared in the air, falling upon Roland and enveloping him in it.

At last, Roland seemed to have understood something. He looked at me meaningfully and said, “Creus, see you around.”

I nodded back at him.

The light flashed and winked out, taking Roland away with it. From the air drifted down delicate pink petals, their soft and sweet scent clearly telling everyone that nothing dark remained.

As I looked around the room covered in pink flower petals, I felt thankful that everything had gone according to plan.

With the threat of a Death Lord and the royal knights distancing themselves from the King, the Crown Prince-firstly worried that the Death Lord might pull out all the stops to kill the King, secondly, to appease the royal knights, and thirdly…… well perhaps it is the little selfish desire of an old Prince already in his forties- would advise his father to abdicate the throne.

The Crown Prince had already been in control of political affairs for quite some time now, so when he spoke up, even the King would not dare to flippantly go against his son and refuse to abdicate.

In the end, the cruel-handed ruler has been forced down from his power, and I believe that after my advice about the possibility of his father creating more Death Knights, the Crown Prince would definitely watch his father carefully and stop him from resuming his hobby.

‘Roland, you might not be completely satisfied with this ending, but after all, I am not a Death Knight. I cannot simply kill people to settle this.’

The dead can just kill and move on to the afterlife afterwards, but the living would have to stay and face the consequences. That is why the living has to find ways to compromise. I can only hope that you can accept this compromised justice.

~O~O~O~O~

The King abdicated the throne, and the Death Knight moved on to the afterlife.

Everything might have been resolved in a rather unexpected way, but it is a happy ending.

All fifty something holy knights had naturally returned to the Holy Temple, and while it had been unavoidable that some had been injured, they were all restored back to full health by the holy priests. Within half an hour, everyone was as good as new.

As the Sun Knight-not to mention I had been heavily wounded-I was the first the priests had rushed to. After receiving more than ten advanced level healing spells, I’m sure even the split ends on my hair have been healed. I immediately stood up to leave, intending to regain my beauty sleep, when I heard the Judge Knight approaching from behind.

“Sun, can I ask you a few questions?”

“Hmm?” I smiled faintly at him.

Judge hesitated for a moment and frowned. “The reason you brought Blaze and Earth along was really to stop the Death Knight, and not because their tempers are easily roused and might start a fight, thus allowing Roland time to become the Death Lord, right?”

“Earth Knight is an honest and gentle person, how could you possibly say that he would start a fight with someone?” I asked, showing just the right amount of bewilderment.

Judge could only frown at that. I knew that he had no way of refuting that statement as the Earth Knight’s honest and gentle personality is a fact that the whole continent knows!

He then asked his second question, “Then while the royal knight were fighting with our holy knights, you had said something to him when he started changing into the Death Lord. You hadn’t used your knowledge of your friend and purposely said something to anger him, thus manipulating him into becoming the Death Lord, right?”

I opened my mouth to reply him with another weak answer, but Judge had continued on without giving me the opportunity to answer.

“When Roland was close to becoming the Death Lord, were you really unable to stop him?”

Judge paused after these two questions, hesitated for a second, before continuing on to say in a certain voice, “Tonight’s events leading up to the King’s abdication, are they all done for Roland’s sake? Your actions……”

“Judge Knight!” I interrupted him with a smile. “You need only know one thing. It does not matter if that Death Knight had been Roland or a complete stranger, everything that had happened tonight would have happened regardless of the Death Knight’s identity, and no other way.”

Judge frowned in disbelief.

I calmly laid my hand on the Sun Knight insignia on my chest and solemnly said, “The first thing my teacher had taught me was this: ‘Serving out justice is the meaning for the Sun Knight’s existence.’”

“Child, the Sun Knight may not be able to get full justice, and the Sun Knight may have to compromise on justice, but the Sun Knight may never give up on justice. The moment that you have given up on carrying out justice, tear off that Sun Knight insignia on your chest, for you are no longer a Sun Knight!”

“Do you understand my answer, Judge Knight?”

Judge was silent for a moment before he nodded. “I understand, Sun Knight. However, I would like to ask you one more question.”

“More questions?” I laughed wryly.

“The Sun Knight is not going to leave a Death Lord wandering around, is he?”

“Of course not!” I smiled my most innocent and guileless smile at him before giving a yawn and said, “I’m so tired! I’m off to bed. Go to bed soon, yourself.”

The Judge Knight kept quiet as I quickened my footsteps, and just as I was about to reach the corner and leave his sight, he suddenly asked me, “Then, will Creus let Roland go?”

At this, I halted my footsteps as I stroke at my pocket. After I had crushed Pink’s pink heart-shaped glass, a book on advanced necromancy arts, a necromancy apprentice certificate and a small slip of paper had appeared in my pocket. I had yet to read the message.

I smiled wryly as I read the message now and answered him, “Well…… it’s rather late. Creus is already asleep; he’ll answer you some other time!”

Written on the paper was:

Dear apprentice,

Don’t bother hoping to get your friend Roland to move on to the afterlife. He’s told me that his obsession is to be the Sun Knight.

Shit!

I should have just burned him at the stake.

Book 1: Rule A – The Twelve Holy Knight’s Shared Rule: “No matter what the circumstances, the Sun Knight is always perfect!”

‘IS SUN THE SLAYER OR NOT?’

A large banner hung from the middle of the ceiling in the conference room.

To avoid detection, not a single lamp had been lit. Eleven knights sat around the table, each knight’s face and figure hidden within the dark shadows.

One of the knights first spoke up, “The Sun Knight’s sword skills may have always been terrible that hardly anyone can recognise his sword waving for the Sun Sword Style, but how could he have been able to fool Blaze--”

A second knight immediately cut off the first one, saying, “No! I never claimed that Sun is Slayer, and I never will.”

“Even if he is Slayer, I’d advise you to act as if he isn’t.” A deep and intimidating voice spoke up.  Everyone seemed to tense up upon hearing this voice.

“We may have always maintained that the Sun Knight upholds Justice, but this time he really has gone too far-he had even used necromancy spells, for crying out loud. Shouldn’t we at least give him a word of warning?”

At this, everyone started arguing with each other.

“But he’s already learned them, so what’s the point of giving him a warning? It’s not like he could forget them all.”

“We could at least counsel him against learning the advanced necromancy spells.”

“Idiot! We should forbid him from using necromancy spells at all for the rest of his life! And magic, too! What kind of knight uses magic?!”

“Puh-leese! You know how awful Sun’s swords skills are, if you forbid him from using necromancy spells and even magic spells, he’d probably be found dead within two days.”

“That’s true……”

‘Knock, knock’

Everyone instantly quieted down at the knocking and looked at each other flummoxed, unsure about whether to answer the door.

“Come in.”

In the end, the one who had called out was the unknown knight with the deep intimidating voice.

The door opened up, letting in a ray of bright sunlight into the dark room. The person who entered was akin to the sun itself, with gleaming golden hair and a smile as bright as the sun. No one would ever connect this radiant man with any kind of darkness whatsoever.

And this bright, dazzling man had an extremely fitting title -- Sun Knight.

The Sun Knight smiled as he looked around, seeming to not notice the huge banner with the words ‘IS SUN THE SLAYER OR NOT?’ on it hanging from the ceiling.

With a sincerely apologetic expression on his face, the Sun Knight said, “My beloved holy knight brothers, this Sun is extremely sorry for interrupting your secret meeting. To disturb your time of socialising is such an inexcusable transgression.

“However, this Sun just couldn’t resist the urge to share with my brothers of the miracle the God of Light had bestowed upon us.” At this, the Sun Knight’s face was filled once again with happiness and delight. “This Sun had just been blessed by the God of Light, and has finally understood the true essence of the resurrection arts. Ah…! Even his grace the Pope had leapt in joy at this wonderful news.

“In the future, my fellow brothers may go to do battle with evil without any second thoughts. There is no need to worry about fatal injuries, for this Sun believes that as long as my fellow brothers still retain their heads, this Sun will be able to bring each of you back from the clutches of Death himself!”

But then at this point, Sun suddenly became saddened and sighed. “Sigh… Unfortunately this art of resurrection is not a very constant one, for one never knows when it might work, and when it might fail! If the spell were to fail due to ‘certain reasons’, causing a certain brother to miss out on his chance of living, this Sun will be inconsolable.”

“… … … …” Everyone kept silent.

“After sharing this joyous news with my brothers, this Sun will not further impede my brothers from exchanging words of the God of Light any longer. May you have a pleasant time conversing.”

With a scarily bright smile, the Sun Knight slowly closed the door, returning the room to darkness. The dark conference room was quiet for some time before someone ventured to ask, “Was that…… a bribe?”

“No! It was a threat.”

The Judge Knight slowly stood up, deciding to leave this pointless meeting. He left a word of advice behind before he left though.

“This is my advice to all of you. Our Sun Knight had already dared to set up the King. Unless you have a position above that of a king, don’t mess around with him.”

The Storm Knight, too stood up and added idly, “And, he’s proficient in the art of resurrection that even the Pope cannot cast; he’s proficient with the holy spells, the magic spells, and now necromancy spells. He has the ‘strongest Sun Knight in history’ as his teacher backing him up, and another necromancer teacher. I’d like to add that he might also have a Death Lord best friend.”

‘Thank God his sword skills are terrible……’ thought everyone.

“Fu*king hell! Is he the Sun Knight or the evil Demon King?!” griped Earth Knight, his face ashen.

Leaf Knight chuckled and said, “Oh, Earth. Have you forgotten what our teachers had drilled into our heads since we were small?”

~O~O~O~O~

“Remember child, no matter what the circumstances, the Sun Knight is always perfect!”

P. S. “Child, if you were to accidently come across an imperfection in the Sun Knight-unless you wish to personally experience his imperfection-just acknowledge that he is perfect.”

End of First Volume