LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 29
EP.29 Old Connections (1)
The canyon where the demon realm and the human realm meet.
The Kirmelt Canyon is never without the stench of blood.
Day after day, the Knights Order and the Demon Lord’s Army clash. Bodies of beasts and demons pile up. Over them lie the bodies of knights.
The stacked corpses are again offered as sacrifices for the spells of Dark Mages or Sorcerers. In the canyon, where only the stench of blood remains, the knights face the bones and swords of those who were their comrades just yesterday.
The knights of Kirmelt Canyon wear blank expressions.
They have no choice but to be expressionless.
At the front lines, the place called the Phantom Territory.
The knights guarding that place are veterans among veterans, those who have rolled in the battlefield countless times.
They have no hesitation in striking down their comrades.
And so, they endure another day.
However.
“Remia.”
Tonight was different.
“Shooooot!”
A rain of arrows pours down.
The arrows, falling under the moonlight, precisely cull only the Demon Lord’s Army. With a single arrow, at least two of the Demon Lord’s forces are pierced.
Thud.
The sound of lightly plucking the bowstring.
The blonde hair of an elf sways in the canyon.
“Sara.”
A brief moment of relaxation.
The battered knights gaze at the woman walking towards them. A woman clad in pure white robes, she raises her hands together in prayer.
Light spreads around her.
In that warm light, the knights recall the woman’s name.
Saint Sara.
Then, they also recall the name of the elf standing in the canyon.
Archery Master Remia.
And naturally, their gazes shift forward. Someone leaps from the canyon. He stands before the knights.
Hiss.
A sword that seems to have been forged from starlight.
That symbolic sword represents his identity.
Hero Kyle Toven.
He swung the sword.
A shining strike of light cleaved the canyon in two.
“Oh, ohhhh…”
“Ooooooh!”
With the appearance of the hero, the knights erupt in cheers. That’s what a hero is. Just by existing, he boosts the morale of the knights.
The number of allies doesn’t matter.
The fact that the hero is with them is what’s important.
‘The hero fights alongside us!’
The knights rose.
‘The star is with us!’
They raised their spears and swords.
Under the moonlight, the knights advanced. Their advance is accompanied by the hero.
It’s just for one night.
Yet that day in Kirmelt Canyon, humanity was victorious.
*
“Oh, I think my clothes smell. Ugh! This is why I hate Undead!”
“Tell me about it. I couldn’t even collect the moonlight arrows properly. This is why I don’t want to come to Kirmelt Canyon.”
The lodging prepared for the hero’s party.
“Doesn’t it feel like it took longer today?”
“It does. When I’m with Kyle… doesn’t it end in less than an hour?”
“Today, we practically pulled an all-nighter, didn’t we?”
“… Yeah.”
Sara and Remia watched Kyle closely.
Kyle was silently polishing the Holy Sword.
Though they weren’t speaking, both Sara and Remia had a pretty good idea of why the battle had dragged on so long.
‘The Wise One, Raniel.’
The mage who had left for the party not long ago.
They could hardly count how many times they felt his absence while fighting the Demon Lord’s Army.
When a wyvern that arrows wouldn’t affect appeared.
When Dark Mages raised Undead.
When Sorcerers tried to conduct their rituals.
They couldn’t help but think of Raniel’s face.
‘So, I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal…’
It wasn’t easy.
To prevent the Dark Mages, Sara had to use enormous divine power. To pierce the wyvern, Remia had to pull out the cherished moonlight arrows.
And as for the Sorcerers.
To halt those damn Sorcerers’ rites, Kyle dove into the middle of the Demon Lord’s forces, fully aware of the injuries he would incur.
‘The bigger problem is…’
Even after all that, they hadn’t managed to avoid taking as much damage as possible.
Dead knights appeared.
To a similar degree as usual.
How much damage they had minimized on the battlefield was directly tied to the assessment of the hero’s party, making Sara and Remia bite their lips.
‘That mage again.’
It was also due to Raniel’s absence.
While Kyle had been rampaging through the battlefield alone, Raniel had anchored the frontline, standing with the knights until Kyle returned.
Kyle moved across the battlefield like a broad spectacle.
Only Raniel could support him.
There was no way the knights could keep up with the hero’s movements. Those who tried to follow him became a burden instead.
The results were disastrous.
Tsk.
Remia clicked her tongue.
“It’s okay. They were bound to die anyway.”
“True. It would have ended up like this eventually.”
They knew that Raniel was a capable mage.
They hadn’t chased him away without realizing that such a thing would happen when he was gone.
‘It was bound to be like this anyway.’
They only thought that.
Raniel’s condition was not good.
During the fights, he had coughed up blood multiple times, and his state had been worsening day by day.
‘He’s soon to die or become a shell of himself.’
That’s why he was abandoned.
“Ugh.”
Sara let out a bitter laugh, curling her lips up.
“And besides, he’s probably suffering right now too?”
She remembered.
“If I don’t heal him, there’s no way he can endure the ‘cycle’ that comes once a month.”
Once a month.
The day when Raniel’s eyes turned black.
2.
“Oh what the hell.”
I was horrified when I woke up in the morning and looked in the mirror.
My eyes were blackened.
“Oh, is it today?”
I placed a hand over my heart.
I could feel the curse gnawing away at one side of my heart.
Ptoo.
After spitting out blood, I saw it was blackened.
‘No wonder my throat feels scratchy.’
I loosened my robe. Then, I put my palm on the spell stacked in my chest.
Ash.
Ashen mana seeped into my body. It was the spell I had caught hold of while fighting that succubus, a mana that devours curses.
Thud, thud.
My heart was pounding heavily.
My throat felt ticklish.
Cough, cough. Ptoo.*
After coughing up blood a few times, my once blackened eyes reverted to normal. Of course, I hadn’t completely eliminated the curse.
‘It’s just been suppressed.’
To ensure it wouldn’t consume me beyond a certain threshold.
I was merely dealing with the rising curse.
‘This isn’t a fundamental solution…’
No matter how well I performed, it was simply maintaining the status quo.
For now, I had no problems with suppressing the curse, so I left it as it was…
‘What happens from here on out is uncertain.’
I hadn’t figured out a single thing about the curse.
I mulled it over for a moment.
“…Should I go meet him?”
It just so happened to be the Sabbath.
I probably wouldn’t have to go to Apuria until the day after tomorrow.
‘I guess it’s time to go.’
It seemed the day had come to handle what I had been putting off. I tidied my attire and finished preparing to leave.
There were two pairs of shoes by the shoe rack.
One was the pair of shoes my Master had bought me, the other was my original military boots.
‘I feel like I’m about to be assigned something again.’
I hesitated for a moment and then chose the military boots.
“Master?”
“What is it, Raniel?”
“I’ll be stepping out for a bit.”
“Where are you going?”
“Um…”
I spoke.
“I’m going to see an old friend.”
*
I have very few people I can call friends.
After all, my relationships were quite limited, and almost all my close friends were dead, so the remaining individuals barely fit in the palm of my hand.
…Kyle was one of them, but he wasn’t anymore.
Anyway, there was one left.
I was heading deep into the Royal Capital to meet the first interspecies friend I had made.
‘Speaking of which, that Remia girl had a fit back then.’
Suddenly an old memory surfaced.
-…What? A silver-haired elf?
-Yeah. A silver-haired elf.
My first interspecies friend.
The elf’s hair was so unique that I had asked Remia about it.
‘Almost all elves have green or blonde hair.’
So I asked if there were silver-haired elves too.
At that question, Remia had a fit.
-Don’t lie, you arrogant human. How could you meet them? They’re beings of legend!
-No, I said I did, why are you freaking out?
-Just say something reasonable. Ha! Then what’s that name? As if you could have met one…
-Kardi.
-…What?
-They said it was Kardi.
-How could you have met that person…?
From her reaction, it was clear he wasn’t an ordinary person.
‘He was indeed remarkable.’
Not in a combative sense, but in terms of wisdom, he was a remarkable figure.
‘I know him as the greatest alchemist.’
I was now on my way to that elf’s house.
As I walked along the dark alleys deep in the Royal Capital, an old, dilapidated store came into view.
“Uh.”
I stopped in front of it and knocked on the door a few times.
“Come in.”
As I entered, the scent of herbs enveloped me.
“What brings you to this old, shabby shop?”
An old man with pure white hair looked at me.
His hair was grizzled, and his skin was wrinkled, but that was a sign of aged handsomeness. I met the old man’s gaze.
His eyes were a tawny color resembling that of a beast.
Those eyes had yet to lose their sharpness.
“Hmm.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“You recognized me even while playing around.”
“……..”
“I mean, it’s obvious, Kardi.”
“Hmph.”
The old man smiled.
“You don’t recognize the consideration of me playing dumb?”
With a flick of his withered fingers, he tapped the table.
At that moment, the old man transformed. His silvery hair gleamed, his wrinkled skin smoothed out.
That change occurs in an instant.
From old man to young man, he shrugged his shoulders.
“A rare guest comes to visit.”
“Rare or not, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“That is also correct, Raniel.”
I forced a smile.
Well, it was impossible not to recognize him.
‘Soul piercing insight, after all.’
This elf had been able to see Kyle’s untapped talent since our first meeting and had predicted his future.
“It’s been a long time, Kardi.”
“By human standards, it has indeed been long.”
I pulled a chair and sat down.
“I’ve heard rumors. From the sound of it, you’ve had quite a glamorous five years if they’re talking about you non-stop.”
“I’ve been busy living.”
“From the looks of it, you seem to have dealt with the black calamity, indicating you’ve probably been flinging a lot of magic around.”
“I had to.”
As we exchanged pleasantries, I took a glance around the shop.
“You haven’t changed a bit.”
There was nothing different from five years ago.
The shop still had barely any light filtering in. That was due to its location in the depths of the kingdom’s slums.
“Do you prefer such a dreary place? It seems quite madness-inducing. Just looking at it makes me depressed.”
“It reminds me of my old hometown, which turned to ashes, so it feels just right.”
“You’re something else, aren’t you?”
A brief lapse of conversation followed.
Kardi fell silent for a moment, took a breath, and then wiped his glasses before putting them back on.
“So, Raniel.”
Kardi, once again wearing his glasses, narrowed his eyes.
“Let’s cut to the chase, since we can talk about trivial matters once the main issue is addressed.”
He pointed to my heart.
Opened his mouth.
“That heart.”
His voice did not resemble Kardi’s gentle tones I remembered.
“That curse, that appearance, that distortion of the soul.”
He asked with a sharpened voice.
“What are you trying to become?”