"So, you just left?"
The old knight, having returned from his expedition, chuckled heartily as he reconfirmed the financial officer's report. His question wasn't born from misunderstanding the situation. He simply found it absurd.
"Yes. He said that what he needed to do now was included in the scope of your orders, and then he walked straight out of headquarters."
"What an interesting fellow indeed."
"Interesting my foot. What are you going to do about this, Commander?"
"Such disrespectful language. That's insubordination."
The financial officer snorted. Having worked alongside the commander on the Western Front for decades, they were accustomed to this kind of banter.
"I wanted to formally entrust him with a banner since it's a waste for him to remain a free knight, but he's already gone."
"What can you do? We can't treat him as a deserter either."
The reason they couldn't treat Criel as a deserter stemmed from his unique situation. Originally, Criel wasn't officially part of the Western Army. He was merely a mercenary hired for a short term.
Criel possessed combat abilities but remained unnoticed until the trial by combat in the barracks drew everyone's attention to him.
In that trial, Criel stood as the proxy for someone called a "witch" and defeated five knights in succession.
The trial had been rigged from the start to condemn the witch, so even victory in combat wouldn't have proven innocence. They would have simply spread rumors like "The witch used Abyss magic to interfere with honorable knights!" to forcibly overturn the verdict.
It was the commander himself who offered Criel—then labeled as the witch's underling—a position as his direct subordinate in exchange for "silencing the rabble, authority within the barracks, and guaranteeing the trial's outcome."
Because of this arrangement, Criel had no direct superior other than the commander. Since he left to carry out his only superior's orders, they couldn't call it desertion.
"Well, let him be. If he wants to properly process his discharge, he'll have to meet with me eventually. When we meet again, I'll offer him a position as the army's standard-bearer or as the head knight of a noble house."
"I think he'll insist on being discharged."
"It would be a waste of his talent."
Even the financial officer, who wanted to rebuke his lord's words, couldn't deny this fact. Rather than agreeing with his playful lord—he didn't want to see him become even more smug—he chose to naturally change the subject.
"The movements from the Holy Kingdom are concerning."
***
[So, are you heading to some mountain village to find a saint? Do you know any saints?]
Criel shook his head. While he was somewhat acquainted with the witch, he didn't particularly want to be friends with her. Wasn't it because of that witch that his name remained on the military roster until now?
"I'm going to the Holy Kingdom. As you said, saints tend to wander around, making them easy to miss."
Of course, his real intention was to get as far away from the Western Army as possible under the pretext of going to the Holy Kingdom. The commander's attention, like that of a sergeant major encouraging reenlistment, would surely fade with time.
[That sounds good. It's been a while since I've been there.]
"A while?"
Come to think of it, that fellow had mentioned receiving an official position during the old United Kingdom era. Noticing Criel's curious gaze, Orishin began boasting about his past.
[Before the races separated! Before the Abyss gained power! When the distinction between priests and kings was still blurry!]
Recalling the lore of Tirnanog RPG, Criel was taken aback. He realized that the "old United Kingdom" Orishin referred to wasn't the early days of the current United Kingdom maintaining the Western Front, but rather the pan-racial United Kingdom from ancient times.
"You've lived a long time."
[Indeed. Life brings all sorts of strange experiences.]
Orishin's story began as if it would reveal something profound but quickly devolved into boasts about having seen famous figures. He claimed to have seen the faces of the three heroes who founded the United Kingdom and even to have challenged the famous fire dragon Kaladripha.
"How did such a famous spirit fall to the Abyss?"
[Damn. You've got me there.]
"I'm not trying to argue. It's just the first I've heard of a means to corrupt an ancient spirit like you without large-scale human sacrifice or ritual offerings."
[Well... I'm not sure about that myself.]
Orishin wiggled his disembodied head—the only part of his spiritual form visible—and added an unhelpful explanation: he just woke up one day with two horns instead of one.
"So 'unknown' is the full answer."
[If I knew the source of this curse, I would have removed it myself. You're being too harsh.]
Though the floating head grumbled, his complaints didn't seem genuine. He was just bantering as usual.
[I think I've told enough about myself. What about your story? I asked something similar in Loran, but you ignored me.]
"My story?"
Criel pondered for a moment. The game called Tirnanog RPG. Himself, who had become a character in that game. His struggles to escape the penalties of the Dark Knight class.
In the end, he hadn't found a way to reconcile the Dark Knight's skills with sanity, so he had sealed away the Dark Knight's unique skills and trained only in the common techniques available to all knight classes.
Many thoughts surfaced and disappeared, but there was only one thing he wanted to say now.
"I met the wrong person and was at risk of being stuck in the army. I used you as an excuse to escape."
[Heh. Your tongue loosens when there's no one around?]
Criel shrugged. As Orishin said, acting like a solemn knight was only necessary in front of others. It was far from his original personality, and trying to protect the oppressed like a textbook knight had almost gotten him trapped in the military.
Now that he was away from the army, he wanted to be more relaxed. As long as he wasn't spewing random profanities, revealing his true self to one or two people wouldn't diminish his Grace.
*...Right?*
As Criel contemplated the conditions for increasing and decreasing Grace in Tirnanog RPG, Orishin's voice reached his ears.
[How long will it take to reach the Holy Kingdom?]
"Even though I'm quite fast on my feet, I think it'll take about ten days."
[That's remarkably fast!]
His pace was well beyond "quite fast." From the Western Army garrison to the capital of the Holy Kingdom—a journey that would take over two weeks even on horseback.
Criel could maintain his speed even when running through mountain ranges where horses would struggle, and he planned to minimize rest by reducing sleep. This extraordinary speed was the effect of fighting energy, an ability trained by knights.
Body enhancement using fighting energy was the result of his efforts to survive without relying on Dark Knight-exclusive abilities like Bloodlust or Grudge.
While Dark Knights, being a knight-class job, naturally had their own fighting energy skills, these were classified as dark fighting energy when fused with Bloodlust or Grudge.
Dark fighting energy was a skill Criel had no reason to train, as he aimed for a healthy mind and body. He had been learning ordinary fighting energy techniques used by regular knights for several years now.
After a week of journeying over mountains and across rivers in his robust manner, Orishin asked Criel:
[By the way, you're a knight without a horse?]
"Not just without a horse. Without money too."
After a momentary silence at Criel's nonchalant answer, Orishin burst into laughter.
[Hahahahaha! What an amusing human! Are you really the same solemn knight I knew?]
"That was in front of others. On the battlefield, a knight is like a paperweight."
[Paperweight? The thing that keeps paper from blowing away?]
Criel nodded. This was a thought formed from his experiences wandering various places while posing as a knight.
"Even if you waver yourself, you mustn't let others waver. Even if you doubt yourself, you must inspire confidence in others. Who would follow a commander they can't trust?"
[Oh ho! But aren't you usually alone? I haven't known you for long, but I can tell you prefer solitude.]
Criel let out a hollow laugh through his helmet.
"That's why I don't have a horse. If I had any influence, wouldn't the headquarters have provided me with at least one?"
[That's convincing!]
Criel discreetly concealed the unfavorable parts of his story. In this world where magic and fighting energy were common abilities, even military horses possessed their own powers. Among them, the horses bred in the Holy Kingdom were considered the finest.
These blessed steeds, with their exceptional self-healing abilities and night vision, were the Western Front's best military horses—and they would spit and turn away at the sight of Criel. It was natural for the Dark Knight class to be shunned by ordinary living beings that followed the natural order. To blessed creatures, he would appear not just unsettling but as something that needed to be eliminated.
Yet riding an ordinary horse wasn't an option either, as they feared Criel's very existence. He simply couldn't ride anything.
*There's a reason Dark Knights go out of their way to contract with bicons...*
Criel glanced at Orishin. A ghostly floating horse head seemed thoroughly unsuitable as a mount.
***
The capital of the Holy Kingdom. Temris, the sacred city where the Priest King, chosen from among the priests, resides.
"Drop your weapons and raise your hands!"
"I repeat, I am not affiliated with the Abyss."
Criel was facing an unexpected security check.