Book 3: Chapter Fourth Requirement of Rescuing a Princess: “The Mandatory Antagonist for an Adventure — A Cool and Handsome Character”

Book 3: Chapter Fourth Requirement of Rescuing a Princess: “The Mandatory Antagonist for an Adventure — A Cool and Handsome Character”

After hurrying along for two weeks’ worth of travel, we once again set up camp, but tonight’s atmosphere was unlike our usually relaxed one—it seemed a little oppressive.

“There’s no one who can match our traveling speed, so why is it that we haven’t caught up?” Mike finally asked Ann. Even though they were childhood friends, it was clear by his tone that he was unhappy.

As a knight, Leaf upheld the noble belief that “princesses are always right,” so he didn’t say a single word. But merely seeing how he didn’t come to Ann’s defense let me know that he was also starting to get suspicious. As for me… I hadn’t opened my mouth to speak for approximately three days, so everyone customarily treated me as if I didn’t know how to speak.

Confronted by everyone’s doubts, Ann only left behind the words “Wait for me” before she walked into the forest. She took a while to come out, and then told everyone, “We’re already very close, but I don’t know what the actual distance is.”

The item that could locate the princess was somewhere on Ann’s body, but she was unwilling to let us know what that item was, which was why she went into the forest.

After hearing such a vague answer, Mike was still somewhat unhappy. Ann quickly consoled him in a soft voice, “Mike, we’re really very close now. It definitely won’t take long before we catch up!”

Mike grudgingly nodded, leaving the topic alone.

When it came to sleeping that night, I tossed and turned…and still couldn’t fall asleep! It wasn’t surprising. I had slept twenty-four hours and hadn’t woken up until dusk. If I could still fall asleep at night, I would have to start wondering if I were possibly related to pigs.

After tossing and turning incessantly, I decided to leave the tent altogether. After sleeping for so many days, I had better exercise my muscles and bones a bit. If I continue to eat and sleep, and sleep and eat in this manner, this could result in a fatal consequence—becoming fat!

Mike was currently on night vigil. When he turned to glance at me, I smiled at him before silently turning toward the forest. His gaze was cold and he didn’t even speak to stop me. It seemed he looked down on me a lot.

I walked into the forest. After I used my ability to sense elements to make sure there was no one around me, I fished out a dragon-shaped badge from my pocket and pressed it down on my chest. In a low voice, I said, “Dragon’s Saint Brigandine, in the name of the descendants of Dragons, I command thee, activate!”

In an instant, black, skin-tight material spread from the badge on my chest to cover my entire body, while my lower face and vitals were covered with silver scales. At this time, I discovered that even though the plating was silver, it didn’t gleam even in the midst of the night. Instead, it blended into the darkness. When I lowered my head to take a look, I couldn’t see anything and almost thought I had no body. That scared me!

…

“Even though I did command you not to speak as you please, let’s forget about that command after all,” I said somewhat helplessly. Even when “silent,” I was still aware of it, so not allowing it to speak didn’t have much meaning.

Understood, my lord.

After that, I walked this way and that, picked the closest and tallest tree, and began climbing. After changing into Dragon’s Saint Brigandine, climbing a tree was practically as easy as walking. In no time at all, I climbed to the very top of the tree.

I lowered my head to survey the surrounding terrain. I then looked above me at the starry sky and found the constellation I was looking for. Once I noted the position, I climbed down the tree and drew on the ground the terrain and constellation position that I had just observed.

It’s as I expected. I laughed grimly to myself…

My lord, someone is currently using their sensing ability to watch you.

I was startled. I’d always been the one spying on others. Now there was actually someone spying on me? I quickly asked Dragon’s Saint Brigandine, “From which direction is that person spying on me?”

Your servant does not know. My lord, the watcher has already retracted their senses.

They retracted so quickly? I pondered for a moment. It was most likely Leaf. He was an archer, so it was possible that he might have later received training in sensing elements. I might have startled him awake when I left earlier, so he customarily did a search. Since my holy element is extraordinary strong, he would have immediately discovered it was me and then retracted his sensing ability.

All right, I finished my business. It’s about time to head back.

At first, I wanted to return to the camp. However, when I remembered Leaf’s earnest action of remembering to use his sensing after he was startled awake, I thought I should also try sensing to see if there was any danger around. Otherwise, I would feel guilty when I climbed on Leaf’s back tomorrow.

I breathed in deeply and then extended my sensing to its limits…

Suddenly, I froze. I looked into the distance. Not too far ahead, there was actually a life form that had a very, very high amount of dark element. I’ve only ever felt this much dark element from Roland, who was a Death Knight. Even though Pink’s dark element was no less than Roland’s, she knew how to hide her aura…

Could this be the princess’ kidnapper? I thought back to the queen’s request. Was this a coincidence, or did the queen already know that the opponent was a dark creature, which warriors are the most ineffective against, and so she forcefully made Leaf and me tag along?

Other than the life form that was giving off the dark element, I also sensed another life form with a very strong wind element. It was most likely a mage versed in wind magic.

I furrowed my brow and wondered, “Has my ability to sense elements grown stronger?”

After I became the Sun Knight, the holy element that my body gave off became so strong that I practically couldn’t sense other elements—except for the opposing dark element. Recently however, it seemed like I could sense elements even without deliberately trying to sense them. Just like when the demon wolf with the fire element tried to sneakily attack me, I was able to sense it beforehand.

“Could it be that I’ve been using too much magic recently, especially necromancy, causing my body’s holy element to weaken?”

If this were the case, that would be bad. I’m the Sun Knight. My holy element can only be strong and can’t be weak. It looks like I need to start being more careful. I can’t continue to randomly use magic that doesn’t belong to the holy element.

At first, since I’d slept for so many days, I thought I would come out, search around, and exercise my muscles at the same time. However, if I couldn’t use my magic at whim, I think it’d be safer for me to go back to sleep… Right when I turned around, a strong “wind” aura appeared immediately behind me.

I turned my head to look. Next to the originally completely empty underbrush, there actually stood a person who was wearing light, black armor and holding a pair of rapiers in his hands. The dark aura from this person’s body was formidable enough to rival that of a death knight’s.

However, he was undoubtedly a living person. Could he be…? I blanked out for a moment before I blurted out, “A dark knight of the Shadow God?”

But I thought some more. He knew magic for Instant Teleportation. How would a knight know magic? I could not help but question him, “You know how to teleport. Are you really a dark knight?”

The dark knight also blanked out for a moment before he blurted, “Such a strong aura of holiness! Are you really an assassin?”

Realizing that both of us doubted each other’s identities, we were immediately at a loss for words. After falling silent for a while, the dark knight coldly asked, “You’re a pursuer?”

Even if I wanted to deny him, I couldn’t. In the vicinity, except for the fugitive in front of my eyes, there was only our group of pursuers. There wasn’t anyone else around, so I also coldly told him, “If you’re a fugitive, then I’m a pursuer.”

Although we were fugitive and pursuer, we stood rigidly without throwing any punches for a long time. I didn’t want to fight with him because the manner he held his swords felt pretty much as imposing as Judgment and Roland’s. I don’t make it a habit to seek death when I have nothing to do.

I think he probably didn’t want to fight with me either, because the amount of holy aura on me was excessive enough to drown out his dark aura. He probably doesn’t make it a habit to seek death when he has nothing to do either.

If the two of us were to start fighting, the probability that I would bombard him to death with my holy light, and the probability that he would hack me to death with his swords, was around fifty-fifty. Because I have the principle of not striking when I don’t have the assurance of a hundred percent victory, I decided to let him go this once!

“I don’t want to fight with you,” I said bluntly.

Having heard what I said, the dark knight wrinkled his brow. Most likely to convey his goodwill, he put his weapons away, but he still lingered without leaving. The two of us coldly glared at each other—smack!

I coldly glared at my palm. This mosquito was sure brave, even daring to fly haphazardly around in front of me while I was wearing Dragon’s Saint Brigandine! Does it not know that right now my entire body is pitch black, so I don’t have the problem of worrying about destroying my white gloves?!

I used my finger to flick off the specimen on my hand. When I turned my head to look, the dark knight happened to look at me with an astonished face. Without any cheer, I said, “What are you looking at? Haven’t you ever seen someone kill a mosquito?”

The dark knight smiled, and with a joking tone, said, “I often see people kill mosquitoes, but this is the first time I’ve seen an assassin kill a mosquito.”

Well, I’m sorry to say, you still haven’t seen an assassin kill a mosquito, because I’m a holy knight, not an assassin.

I yawned. “Since we’re not going to fight, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Wait a moment!”

My face fell. It looked like he wasn’t willing to let me go. Too bad, since I’d wanted to go back and shout out loud: the fugitive is nearby; let us go catch him quickly. Once we caught him, found the princess, and finished attending the wedding, I would then have been able to return to the Holy Temple to be a church hermit. Hallelujah!

With his brow wrinkled, he looked at me and said somewhat hesitantly, “The princess came with me willingly.”

When I heard this, my heart jumped, but on the surface I still answered coldly, “Every rapist always says the female seduced him.”

The dark knight’s face fell, and then he added another alarming declaration, “We eloped!”

Bastard!

For the most part, I believed him for no other reason than the fact that this dark knight was truly damn tall, handsome, and striking. He belonged to the type where “the moment a man sees him, he will want to kill him to decrease his rival in love by one.”

He was exceptionally suited to be a dark knight, because a dark knight is precisely someone who is cold-hearted and regards everyone else as an enemy… When someone is as handsome as he is, he must have regarded all the men around him as enemies to have lived to his age.

“If you eloped, then why did you leave behind that letter?”

I diligently continued to struggle and didn’t accept this “truth” too quickly… With this handsome a kidnapper, I believed that even if the princess had truly been kidnapped, after associating with this handsome guy all day and night for two weeks, the situation most probably would have turned into elopement.

The dark knight blanked out and asked in puzzlement, “What letter?”

“…”

I’d just discovered that the situation was even wilder than I had imagined. When I wanted to ask for clarification, I heard a burst of rustling noises drift over from behind. I abruptly shut my mouth. Evidently, the dark knight heard it too.

He glanced at me, took out a magic scroll from his possession, spoke the words, “Instant Teleportation,” got completely surrounded by a whirlwind, and then disappeared from his former place with a “swoosh.”

“So he used a magic scroll for Instant Teleportation. I knew there couldn’t be that many strange people in this world who don’t match up with their occupations…”

I muttered this while I dispelled Dragon’s Saint Brigandine. I gathered a little bit of holy light and stood in my spot to wait.

“Sun!”

Leaf was the first to jump out from the thicket. He looked up and down to take measure of me. Once he saw that I was fine, he breathed a sigh of relief, but still asked in concern, “Are…are you all right?”

“I’m all right,” I said simply.

After that, Mike, Ann, and Austin all arrived as well. I saw that they all looked at me with eyes full of misgivings. I calmly opened my mouth to explain, “I encountered a dark knight.”

When I said that, I paid attention to all of their reactions. Mike suspiciously blurted, “A dark knight? What’s a guy from the Cathedral of the Shadow God doing in our territory?”

Austin wrinkled his brow, looking like he was deep in thought.

Ann’s expression momentarily became panicked, but she proved herself a princess. She regained her composure within a split second and even gave me a concerned look.

As I always did, I gave Ann a smile. This smile clearly relieved her. She didn’t reveal any more frantic looks.

Leaf asked doubtfully, “Could it be that this dark knight kidnapped the princess?”

I smiled brightly at Leaf who opened his eyes wide, looking just like an elementary student who didn’t know what he had done wrong. I quickly pondered to myself, weighing all my possibilities, before I decided to stick to acting stupid. I answered, “Sun doesn’t know.”

Mike actually roared lowly in an agitated and indignant way, “It must be him! Where is he now?”

“He used a scroll for Instant Teleportation to flee. I’m afraid he is already quite a distance away from us,” I answered truthfully.

Having heard what I said, Mike practically reached his boiling point and kept yelling that he was going to chase after the kidnapper right now. His fists were probably itching, given how he hadn’t seriously fought for two weeks, I thought.

Austin promptly pulled Mike back and began his earnest father-to-son instruction, saying things like how the distance was unclear; how if we were to chase after him now, we might not be able to catch up with him; how we hadn’t tidied up any of our camping equipment; how if we didn’t catch up with him, we’d have a hard time continuing our chase…

Once we returned to the campsite, under Mike’s insistence, we decided to set out two hours earlier the next day. After that, except for Mike—who decided to stay on watch until morning, everyone else squeezed into their tents to continue sleeping. But, who knew if there was anyone who was able to fall asleep after tonight’s happenings.

Leaf and I were just such a two-person group who couldn’t fall asleep. The moment Leaf squeezed into the tent, he stared at me as if he wanted to ask something. I quickly used both of my hands to cover his mouth, not letting him speak. He opened his eyes wide to stare at me.

I pondered for a moment, and then gathered holy light to my finger. I then used a line of light to sketch out words.

“I think we’ve been tricked by the queen and Princess Ann.”

After Leaf saw this line of words, he tried with great effort to copy me by using holy light on his finger, sketching out words… However, what he had sketched was lopsided and askew. It took me a lot of trouble to recognize that he had written, “What do you mean?”

I thought for a bit and sketched more words, “I am only certain that Ann led us in a roundabout way.”

As for the business with the letter, only having the words of the dark knight was still too subjective, so I withheld from mentioning it for now.

Leaf furrowed his brow and sketched, “What should we do then?”

I thought for a moment, and then sketched, “The two of us cannot separate. As for the rest, let’s continue maintaining our current status. You only need to continue carrying me on your back when we make haste!”

Leaf very earnestly drew six glowing dots, “……”

After around an hour, Mike began yelling and roaring, waking everyone up from bed. I didn’t care too much, since I couldn’t fall asleep anyway, but Leaf was startled awake. When he climbed up from bed, his face was full of exhaustion.

Seeing this situation I felt a pang of guilt, so when it came time to climb onto Leaf’s back, I even wavered for a tiny moment. Thankfully, I didn’t have too much of a conscience, so I was able to ignore that pang of guilt and continued to climb onto Leaf’s back.

Once Mike saw our actions, he immediately yelled angrily, “Elmy, stop wasting time carrying him. He’s useless anyway. Use your full speed to accompany us in chasing the kidnapper.”

Leaf immediately refuted, “No. If it were earlier, leaving Sun behind would have been fine.”

Hey…

“But now that we know that the enemy is a dark knight with the dark element, we must bring Sun along with us. Only he is able to counter the opponent’s dark element.”

Mike laughed coldly. “After meeting us, what doesn’t become dark? Corpses belong to the dark element, don’t they?”

After hearing this, even Leaf was stunned into silence for a moment. With a team assembled like ours, it could be said that if a god blocked us, we’d slay the god; if a demon blocked us, we’d slay the demon… However, on the road, there were only worthless demonic beasts and unscrupulous adventurer teams, so there wasn’t a single worthwhile battle. Leaf, Austin, and I hadn’t even lifted a single finger. The moment we had met the enemies face-to-face, they were all trampled to dust by Mike and Ann.

Also, we’d already made haste for two weeks at inhuman speeds, and had already entered the depths of the forest, but our situation still hadn’t changed. Mike still used his fists to solve everything, never once drawing his sword. Ann still used her feet to answer all of the men who opened their mouths to assail her, and only used her two single-handed axes to dissect dinner. Leaf’s only job was to carry me; not a single arrow was missing from his quiver.

Leaf hesitated a bit before he turned his head to ask me, “Sun, it’s only for a day. Can you run along with us?”

Earlier, I had sensed the existence of a wind mage next to the dark knight. Mages versed with the wind element are experts in the Spell of Flight and the Spell of Instant Teleportation. That was probably why even though our speed was already this quick, we still couldn’t catch up. Since we couldn’t catch up, why must I struggle so hard to catch up? Unhurriedly, I opened my mouth to say, “In order not to burden everyone’s speed, please do not let Sun concern you. Sun will soon catch up later.”

“Sun?” Leaf looked at me in great astonishment.

I waved to stop him from speaking, and smiled as I said, “Sun’s heart is already set. Brother Leaf, please do not stop Sun again. Sun has the God of Light’s blessing.”

Leaf hesitated for a moment, and then spoke somewhat grudgingly, “Okay then. You be careful, Sun.”

“Let’s hurry,” Mike urged relentlessly.

I gazed at everyone’s departing backs. Leaf turned his head again and again, throwing worried looks at me, but the thicket was dense and their advance was very fast, so it didn’t take long for them to disappear from my sight.

By this time, I murmured to myself, “All right, I heard that there’s a small, isolated forest town around here. Inside…there should be alcohol to drink, right?”

It had almost been a month since I had any liquor. As a guy who has a wine cellar for a basement underneath his room, my craving was strong enough to want to directly pluck fruits off a tree and use the yeast within my luggage to brew wine.

What? You’re asking me why I’ve brought yeast?

Eh…

Sometimes, between wine merchants, you can use your own yeast to trade for different yeast. Do you understand?

What? Aren’t I a holy knight? Since when have I become a wine merchant?

Of course I’m still a holy knight. It’s just that people should make early plans for retirement! I’m already twenty-three this year. I retire at age forty, but no matter how much I save, my retirement fund will be miniscule. If I want to spend my later years in luxury, of course I need to think of a secondary profession. Besides, my skill at wine brewing is already great. If I don’t develop and promote it more, how would I be able to face all the drunkards under the sky?