Chapter 138: The Proud Knight
The view outside the window is of barracks stretching into the distance, and further away, an endless forest.
The easel is set up beside the window, and a pencil sketches the distant scenery on the paper.
“Crack.”
The pencil lead breaks on the drawing paper. George puts down the broken pencil, rubs his forehead; he has been under a lot of stress lately and finds it difficult to focus on painting to relax.
There are too many burdens weighing on his shoulders.
Once a saintly hero, he has now been cast aside to the fringes of society, excluded from even the most important missions. Although George is confident that he can make a name for himself again, the pressure is still there to some extent.
The war has harmed too many people, and he just hopes that the spoils he wins in the knight tournament can help reduce the suffering of the refugees in the city.
Thinking of this, he glances at the armor standing by the wall, covered by a layer of red cloth. He does not wish to return home to rest only to endure this old and mismatched armor. Strangely, everyone praises him for its practicality and simplicity, causing George to start doubting his own taste.
Clearly, it’s a poorly made armor, and his victories are purely due to his opponents being unable to compete; as a result, he has inadvertently set a trend of unattractive mismatches. Others copying his armor style repeatedly remind George of how bad his aesthetic sense is.
He suspects it’s Jemargar’s doing and thought about confronting her, but considering her good intentions, he decided to let it go.
George originally intended to find Jenna to confide in, but Jenna has started acting strangely, distancing herself from him. Despite his sincere attempts to chat, he is met with only disdain and her departing back.
He could talk to Jemargar, but he decides against it, knowing she is fragile as well.
George once considered seeking out Eve Frostleaf for a chat. Setting aside the issue of racial superiority, Eve Frostleaf is a kind-hearted girl who understands others.
However, she has also been acting very weird lately, provoking him and insulting his race, which angered George enough that he kicked her out of his room.
Afterwards, George tried to ponder Eve Frostleaf’s psychological state, gaining nothing. Understanding women is far more complicated than solving mathematical problems, and he would have to consider the thoughts of three different women…
Additionally, he has a persistent, bad premonition.
Compared to these troublesome issues, George feels that the difficulties he faces in restoring the diamond are as simple as beating a goblin to death.
“Calm down, calm down… Just relax.”
George softly tells himself, picking up a sharpened pencil and continuing to focus on his drawing.
“Snap.”
The pencil lead breaks again.
…
In the kingdom of Bartok, the most numerous knights are the ranger knights. They are young, have no territories, and are eager to prove themselves in the correct way, by earning honor through combat with lances and swords.
Therefore, when there is no fighting, the ranger knights call upon friends they met in the martial arts tournament, forming teams to seek out beasts in the wild.
In the dense forest, ranger knight Sam rides his warhorse. He is as stocky as a black bear, sporting a thick black beard, with shoulder armor that is uneven in size—this asymmetrical style mimics that of his idol, Dragon Slayer George.
Not only that, he brags incessantly about the dragon-slaying banquet George invited him to months ago, to the point where his knight friends’ ears have developed calluses from hearing about it.
Sam is not just a simple admirer of dragon-slaying George; he also yearns to get closer to his idol one day. He would be satisfied just to pierce a giant, let alone slay a dragon.
Thus, like many other eager ranger knights, he tirelessly searches for beasts to hone his combat skills.
However, this has been their thirteenth outing, and they haven’t seen a single beast after half a day.
On the expansive dirt road, trees lined with dead leaves stand to either side, and the cold wind whistles through the woods, creating an extremely annoying sound.
“Hey, farmer.” Sam waved to the farmer leading the way and said, “Didn’t you say there would be beastmen robbing on this main road?”
“Yes, my lord.” The farmer, riding a nag sponsored by a knight, bowed down in fear, his straw hat falling to the ground. “I heard that refugees escaping yesterday were attacked by beastmen, and half of them died.”
“Heard?”
“I… I saw a survivor with my own eyes; he was going mad.”
The knight in a dog-faced helmet shouted:
“Sam, what are you talking to the farmer for? Farmers are both stupid and dim-witted; they might mistake wild sheep for a pack of beasts. We should head further out, preferably deep into the occupied territory; who knows, we might stumble upon a horde of beastmen and take the chance to take the beast leader’s head, and then the whole kingdom will sing our praises.”
“Don’t be absurd.” Sam said, “I don’t want Duke Kasson to think I’m dodging the call to war. What if the army mobilizes just as we’re moving away?”
“Who cares! We are knights from other duchies, not his knights.”
At that moment, a mounted bow squire appeared on the distant hillside, wearing patched cotton armor and a short-sleeved mail shirt, a pot helm on his head, holding a bow that knights consider a coward’s weapon. These farmer-born squires are dispatched on tedious and dangerous reconnaissance missions.
The bow squire rode up in a hurry, shouting:
“My lords, noble lords! There are beastmen ahead, beastmen!”
In an instant, the lackluster ranger knights urged their warhorses forward en masse, blocking the way of the bow squire, who was now overly nervous and tangled in speech.
“Farmer!” The knight in a dog-faced helmet unsheathed his sword and shouted, “Make your words clear! Otherwise, I’ll chop off your head!”
“The beastmen are killing groups of refugees.”
“Where?”
“Just down the slope, they’ll be here in ten minutes.”
No one asked how many beastmen there were, and no one cared; he raised his knight’s sword high: “Knights! The beastmen are right ahead! Follow me————”
The sound of hooves from the warhorses drowned out the rest of his sentence as the ranger knights surged past him.
Sam raised his lance, its triangular banner fluttering in the wind; adrenaline surged through his veins as he recalled tales of knightly valor, thinking of his idol.
When he reached the top of the slope, he witnessed the slaughter taking place below.
Brown-horned beastmen were continuously pouring out of the forest, charging toward a group of almost a thousand refugees. The refugees were surrounded, their escape routes completely blocked; they formed a circle with their oxen, carts, and donkeys, while the remaining humans inside were desperately clinging to life.
Arrows were embedded in the carts, and the ground was littered with the corpses of animals and people that had been hit.
The beastmen were in overwhelming numbers, wielding bows and spears, charging toward the humans entrenched behind the makeshift barricades. The starving beastmen, like hounds, pursued the scattered humans, bringing down the fleeing riders, filling the air with human cries of despair.
The situation tilted heavily in favor of the beastmen; at most, in half an hour, all the humans would be lying dead.
They numbered no less than a thousand.
Meanwhile, the ranger knights had only around sixty, even with the additional two hundred conscripted infantry they had brought along, because the knights disdainfully deemed foot soldiers a hindrance to their speed and had not brought many.
However, the backs of those beastmen were turned towards the ranger knights.
The ranger knights were unfazed by the enemy’s numbers; they did not slow down and did not wait for the sluggish infantry, charging down the slope with their lances, aiming them at the backs of the beastmen.
Sam shouted, “Wedge formation! Wedge formation!”
Some of his knight companions accelerated, forming a wedge shape behind him. They had practiced this formation dozens of times in team competitions at the martial arts tournament.
The sixty-odd ranger knights split into two wedge formations, striking hard at the sides and rear of the beastmen.
“Knights! Knights! From behind!” a clever beastman loudly alerted, but it was too late.
On the battlefield filled with noise and blood, very few heard his warning.
A beastman officer chopped and slashed, pulling together forty or so beastmen with spears to intercept the speeding knights. But the knights were too fast, and the formation was too slow; as the first row of beastmen barely finished lining up with their long spears, the ranger knights had already started their charge, their lances raised, aimed directly at them.
The ground shook, and dust billowed under the pounding hooves.
The long spears of the first row of beastmen quivered, retreating step by step, while those behind could no longer hold back, fleeing backwards.
The ranger knights’ lances were almost upon them; unable to maintain discipline and morale against instinct and fear, they instinctively tried to dodge the charging warhorses, causing their formation to break apart.
The knights surged in easily, trampling the beastmen underfoot, driving their lances into any beastman that dared to stand.
Sam thrust his lance into a beastman’s chest; with a flick of his wrist, the beast fell. He swiftly pulled out his lance and let out a victorious roar.
The hooves of the ranger knights trampled over sixty-plus corpses, crushing the last hopes of the beastmen to block the knights.
In the melee where the beastmen had lost their formation, they were unable to withstand the excited ranger knights, who fought in groups, charging about with ranger knights’ figures everywhere.
The ambushed beastmen were caught off guard, losing their organization; some began to flee like headless flies. The conscripted infantry, having received orders, began to draw their bows and shoot at the beastmen.
The beastmen started to collapse, from dozens to hundreds. The ranger knights discarded their lances, drawing their swords to chase after the fleeing beastmen, slashing until they dispersed, leaving behind their fallen comrades’ bodies to vanish into the forest.
The reckless ranger knights finally ceased their chase, turning back to the battlefield to deal with the beastmen who hadn’t managed to escape.
The battle soon calmed down, and with the knights’ encouragement, the attacked refugees rushed out to join the conscripted infantry, slaughtering the wounded beastmen who had been unable to flee.
The ranger knights loosened their reins, allowing their beloved warhorses a slow-paced rest.
They boasted to one another about their bravery.
“I killed thirty-seven!”
“I killed a hundred!”
“You’re lying!”
“What does it matter how many you killed if they are just lesser beasts?” Sam said, lifting a beastman’s head by the hair, blood dripping from the severed neck. “I killed eight beastmen and almost got the beast leader; that sly creature ran away very quickly.”
“Impressive! The strength gained from eating dragon meat works wonders.”
The nearby conscripted infantry were busy grabbing the spoils while the knights barely paid them any mind.
At this moment, a mounted squire approached, bowing his head and asking, “My lord knight, do you have any commands?”
“Tell those greedy farmers to gather up everything.” Sam shouted, “The lances all have engravings; if one is missing, I’ll hang you from a branch.”
“Yes, my lord knight.”
Although it was a successful assault, some ranger knights would never return from this battle.
Sam and the other ranger knights found the bodies of the fallen knights, a total of six.
They felt little sorrow; instead, they stood their swords upright in front of them, pressing their foreheads against the blades, congratulating each other for dying heroically in battle, believing they would be rewarded by the goddess after death.
Following tradition, they erected a statue of the lake goddess, half a person tall, then withdrew their blades to chase away those collecting spoils, so that the statue would face a battlefield littered with corpses, devoid of farmers scavenging for goods like flies.
The ranger knights knelt partly, gripping the sword shafts, with blade tips pointing towards the ground, lifting their long swords. From behind, it seemed that each one of them grew an additional cross on their heads.
“…Goddess protect us.”
“Goddess bless us…”
After their simple prayers, a faint green light fell upon them.
The knight in the dog-faced helmet beamed, saying, “The goddess has rewarded our brave deeds.”
Sam, filled with joy, stood up, drew his bloodied sword, and turned his back on the piles of corpses, shouting, “For the goddess!”
“For the goddess!”
After shouting, Sam turned around, frowning at the sight of another farmer. Well, perhaps he wasn’t a farmer; he was dressed somewhat better, had a scar on his face, and wore a smile, but to Sam, he seemed no different from a farmer.
“Who are you?”
“My lord knight.” The scarred farmer bowed and said, “By the goddess above, we sincerely thank you for your assistance; this is our gift to you.”
Saying that, he made a gesturing motion indicating an invitation.
At that moment, Sam noticed a few carts piled high with supplies behind them, the color of golden necklaces shimmering on top.
Sam furrowed his brows and bellowed, “Farmer! Do you think we fight for gold?”
“No, no, my lord, of course not; this is just a gift.”
Sam waved his hand and said, “Then take your gift and roll along; leave the carts with me; I want to take the beastmen’s heads back.”
With that, he sheathed his sword without even looking at the scarred farmer, and the other knights followed suit, some even letting out a cold huff as they passed by.
The rescued refugees looked at the knights in astonishment, hardly believing that this group of knights really wanted no reward at all.
The conscripted infantry, receiving their orders, began to cut off the heads of the beastmen while gathering the spoils.
The knights dismounted, resting nearby while directing the squires to wipe down their swords, watching the conscripted infantry work and mocking the farmers for their greed and foolishness.
Sam mimicked the tone of the scarred farmer: “This is our gift to you, my lord knight.”
“Hahaha.”
The knights nearby burst into laughter.
“The foolish minds of farmers utterly fail to grasp the meaning of faith in the goddess.”
“…And bravery.”
At that moment, the previously scarred farmer walked over and said, “My lord knight, I am not a farmer; I am a merchant.”
Sam said, “No wonder.”
“Here is a letter; the messenger was shot and died.” The scarred “farmer” took out a letter with a wax seal.
“Do I look like a delivery boy to you?”
Sam unsheathed his knight sword as the other knights also stood up.
“No, no, not at all.” The scarred farmer said, terrified, “But I heard the letter needs to be delivered to a famous knight noble; I have heard of his name; you must know it too.”
“Oh?” Sam took the letter, his tone a bit excited. “George the Great Hammer?”
