Book 2: Chapter Second Shared Rule of the Twelve Holy Knights: “Respect the Privacy of the Twelve Holy Knights”

Book 2: Chapter Second Shared Rule of the Twelve Holy Knights: “Respect the Privacy of the Twelve Holy Knights”

“This is the main hall of the Holy Temple. It’s only used for show.”

“Grisia…”

“The main hall has two walkways. One of them leads to the inner part of the Holy Temple, while the other leads to the main hall of the Sanctuary of Light.”

“Grisia…”

“We’ve reached the most important location. This is your room, which is two doors down from mine. The room between ours belongs to Knight-Captain Judgment…”

“Grisia.”

“Also, the meeting room for the conference of the Twelve Holy Knights is the third door down the walkway which is on the right after you go down two walkways that way– It can be confusing if I just tell you like this. Come on, I will show you the way to that room.”

“Grisia!” I growled softly in annoyance.

Grisia stopped walking and gently rebuked me, “You should call me Sun, and reserve Grisia for personal conversation! But, if you insist on calling me Grisia, I guess it doesn’t really matter…”

I grimly interrupted him, “I think it’s time for me to leave.”

“What are you talking about? Where are you going to go?”

“I’m not going anywhere, but I want to leave the Holy Temple,” I answered simply, and my heart was a little worried. The longer I stayed in the Holy Temple, the higher the chance was that I would be found out as the death knight. It would be a small problem if I was destroyed because of this, but if Grisia was found to be in contact with a death knight… For him, there would be very serious consequences.

Grisia looked at me in surprise, and he said, “You are the Hell Knight. If you don’t stay in the Holy Temple, where are you going to?”

I was rendered speechless for a moment, before I managed to open my mouth to remind him, “I’m not the real Hell Knight, or have you forgotten about that?”

He thought for a moment, and then looked at me concernedly and said, “Hell, are you feeling faint from the heat due to the sunny weather? How can you forget the fact that you are the Hell Knight?”

I was rendered speechless again. Grisia… What are you trying to do?

At that moment, a holy knight came running toward us while shouting, “Captain! The royal knights and the warriors from the Monastery of the God of War met on the street, and they are now in a fierce battle!”

Grisia’s face turned stern and angrily he said, “What are the holy knights doing? Didn’t they restrain both sides?”

“No, but they did form a protective circle to protect the citizens who are looking on from the side! And then…”

“Then what?”

“Then they started cheering for the royal knights from the sidelines…”

Hearing this, Grisia’s face became even more irritated. He spoke rapidly to me, “Just go and look around by yourself. I will be right back after I check on them. I just have two things to mention. Firstly, you cannot leave the Holy Temple, and don’t try to go look for Pink as she has already moved house. Secondly, don’t invade the privacy of the other Twelve Holy Knights, especially in their own rooms.”

“Wait…” I was stunned as I watched him sprint away quickly with the other holy knight.

Pink has moved? Where should I go then?

I have no idea how long I stood rooted to that spot. Many of the holy knights walked past me, and they even saluted me and called me Knight-Captain Hell, while I had no idea what the correct response was.

Not long after, I saw someone I knew walking toward me.

“Judgment Knight…”

I watched him with some wariness. From Grisia’s general description of him, he should know that I’m the death knight.

But, the Judgment Knight didn’t seem to be wary of me at all. He just said, “That’s ‘Knight-Captain’ Judgment to you. ‘Judgment Knight’ is the title used by outsiders to refer to us. Please don’t make this mistake again, Knight-Captain Hell.”

I was speechless once more. Don’t tell me that he has no intention of exposing me? He plans to let a death knight run free inside the Holy Temple?

Judgment Knight looked at me again and asked, “Do you have any further questions?”

I answered reflexively, “I don’t know where I should go.”

Judgment thought silently for a moment before saying, “You could go to the library, as there are many books there that can refresh your memory about the duties of the Hell Knight. Alternatively, you can go and look for Knight-Captain Storm. He’s so busy that he lives in the hope that someone will go and help him. He is in his room now, amending documents.”

I had nothing to say to that, so I told him, “Thanks.”

“Oh, right, Knight-Captain Hell, will you be available tonight to practice sword-fighting with me?”

“Sure,” I answered immediately. The sword skills of Judgment Knight were very good, and I had always hoped to fight him again.

After some thought, since I couldn’t keep standing in the walkway doing nothing, I decided to follow the suggestions of Knight-Captain Judgment and go to the library to get a book to read while waiting for the practice match that night. After I spoke to a holy knight and found out the location of the library, I walked straight there. There were quite a few holy knights in the library, but I decided to ignore everyone who greeted or saluted me. I opened a book cabinet and started to look for a few books which mentioned the Hell Knight–

“What books are you looking for?”

In a heartbeat, I leaped back and roared, “Who are you?!”

“I’m the Cloud Knight.”

A head actually leaned out from the book cabinet, and his face was as pale as a sheet of paper. For an instant, I couldn’t determine whether he was a ghost or a human… And he’s even saying that he is one of the Twelve Holy Knights? How can this be?!

“Knight-Captain Cloud, can you please pass me the song book related to the Twelve Holy Knights? I’m going to tell stories to the children.” A holy knight said to the head, smilingly.

“Of course.” The head withdrew into the book cabinet, and after a moment it leaned out again, this time with the addition of a hand that was as pale as his face. The hand was holding a book.

“Thank you, Knight-Captain Cloud.” After taking the book, the holy knight even said to me in a good-natured way, “Knight-Captain Hell, if you are looking for a book, it’s better to ask Knight-Captain Cloud to get the book for you. Knight-Captain Cloud is familiar with the location of every single book in the library.”

He really is the Cloud Knight? I was stunned.

That head– No, Knight-Captain Cloud looked at me for some time, and then spoke in an ethereal way, “What a weird person. He’s standing in front of the book cabinet but he isn’t looking for a book.” He then withdrew his head back into the cabinet and closed the door.

At once, I decided to give up on the library and go to look for Knight-Captain Storm. Though I don’t think that I will be able to offer any help…

“I’m so touched! Here, read through all these documents, and then underline any problematic sentences in red, and lastly summarize the whole document in three lines. After that, just give it to me for a final read through, and then it should be ready to be stamped…”

Without another word, Knight-Captain Storm threw a large pile of official documents to me.

I held the pile of documents in my arms and said somewhat anxiously, “But I have never amended an official document before. I don’t know how to do it.”

“Don’t look so worried, it’s normal for a first-timer,” Knight-Captain Storm consoled me. “I will look over it again, if I have the time…”

I read through the documents and only finished amending them in the evening, and then I brought all the documents back to Knight-Captain Storm.

“You’ve done a great job!” Knight-Captain Storm said to me while holding a stamp in his hand. He then stamped all the documents without even glancing down at them. “Do you have matters to attend to tomorrow morning? No? Then can you come over to help me again? Yes? It’s agreed then, Knight-Captain Hell!”

Actually, I didn’t agree at all… But an agreement is an agreement. Looks like I have to stay until tomorrow morning now.

“That’s right; please help me to return this to Knight-Captain Ice on your way back. Thanks.” Knight-Captain Storm handed me something that, no matter how I looked at it, looked just like a small plate and fork for eating cakes.

Having no other choice, I went and knocked on Knight-Captain Ice’s door.

“Wait.” After Knight-Captain Ice took the plate from my hand, he only uttered that single word before closing the door again.

I stood there and waited.

The door opened again, and he gave me two bags that were filled with sweets from the smell of it, and said simply, “This one’s for you, and that one’s for Sun.”

“…Thank you.” I said. I guess…I will give both bags to Grisia.

“Eat a piece,” Knight-Captain Ice suddenly said, and then stared at me intently. Again not given another choice, I followed his words and ate a piece. This was a very wasteful gesture, as a death knight doesn’t require food.

“Not sweet? Sweet? Too sweet?” Ice Knight asked.

I was silent. As a death knight, my tongue was mostly only used for speaking. I replied, “My ability to taste isn’t too good; I can’t really taste the food.”

Knight-Captain Ice took out a notepad, and wrote something on it while muttering, “Hell, very heavy tastes.”

“…?”

After Knight-Captain Ice finished writing the note, he looked up and asked, “Where are you headed?”

I was at a complete loss as to where I should go, so I could only reply, “I’m just wandering around.”

Ice nodded, and asked, “Help me out?”

“Sure.” I said.

I held many bags filled with sweets and looked all around for the Twelve Holy Knights. My first stop was going back to the book cabinet from before to look for Knight-Captain Cloud.

“Thank you. These books are for you to read.” Cloud leaned his head out from the book cabinet, and took a bag from my arms, passing me a few books in the process.

I looked at the titles, which read ‘The Histories of the Hell Knights’ and ‘The Manual of Duties of a Hell Knight’ respectively.

“Thank you.” I said.

Knight-Captain Blaze stared at me for a long moment, and mumbled to himself, “Obviously Sun is Supreme Dragon, so how come there is now another Supreme Dragon? Is Sun the real one, or is Supreme Dragon the fake one…”

In the end, he took the bag cheerily and said to himself, “Ah it doesn’t really matter if I don’t understand! Both of their names start with ‘Su’ anyway, I will just take it as Sun having a clone!”

I totally didn’t understand what he was talking about.

When Knight-Captain Earth came to open the door, he tried to block the view with his body, as though there was something that shouldn’t be seen by me behind the door.

“My…my room is very messy.” Knight-Captain Earth smiled shyly.

I nodded to show that I understood, and then handed over the bag.

“Eeaarth, are you done yeeeet?”

Earth looked at me, and laughed in an innocent way, “Hohoho, Hell you must have been mistaken! There’s no female voice coming from my room at all.”

“…” I didn’t say anything…

Knight-Captain Leaf opened the door with a smile that stretched from ear to ear, and he didn’t block the doorway with his body. I could clearly see that his room was very neat and organized, in line with the characteristic cleanliness of a knight.

“Thank you very much, Knight-Captain Hell,” he said while taking the bag from my hand.

I only noticed at that moment that he was holding a small straw doll in his hand. Generally speaking, shouldn’t that be crafted to be as big as a real person, and then placed in the middle of a field to make birds believe that there were people in the field, thus stopping them from pecking the crops?

Knight-Captain Leaf saw that I was looking intently at the straw doll, and he immediately explained while smiling, “This is really useful! You only need to secure it to the wall and then use a hammer to pound nails into it to improve your mood!”

I had heard of this way of using those things before. In the legends of the local villages, this was the method practiced by witches to curse people.

In a friendly tone Knight-Captain Leaf added, “Oh right, and if you add a piece of the other person’s hair to the straw doll, the effects will be doubled! It’s even better if you add fingernails to it!”

I said goodbye to Knight-Captain Leaf after making sure that I didn’t leave behind even so much as half a bit of hair or fingernail.

That night, before I started the practice match with the Judgment Knight, I couldn’t help but shake my head and sigh. “Are all of the Twelve Holy Knights really this weird?”

Judgment Knight looked at me, his eyes unreadable.

I couldn’t understand why he was looking at me that way.

He opened his mouth and spoke slowly, saying, “Yes, everyone more or less has their own quirks, but we respect the privacy of the other Twelve Holy Knights very much. As long as each of them fulfills their duties as one of the Twelve Holy Knights…even if he is a corpse who is running around freely, we respect him as much as the others.”

“…”

So, the weirdest member of the Twelve Holy Knights is me?