Paladin of a Ruined Order - Chapter 2

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

Chapter 2: Vagabond or Paladin (1)

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Elbridge said, stumbling over the words.

"Goddess. I was too foolish to understand your words properly. There was no way your order, the Order of the Rusted Shield, could have disappeared..."

There was a strange lack of confidence in the goddess's voice when she answered.

- Strictly speaking, it had greatly declined, though it had not disappeared. You are still here, are you not...

There is a subtle difference between being ruined and being gone.

And the goddess's statement, that because he was still there it had not yet disappeared, implied a great many things.

In other words, if Elbridge had not existed, the order would have vanished.

Elbridge was flustered and asked the goddess back.

"Goddess, if I may be so bold, may I ask how many seats you currently hold in the Heavenly Council?"

The goddess did not answer.

Still, the meaning of that silence was clear: the Goddess of the Rusted Shield did not hold a single seat in the Heavenly Council.

'In the two hundred years that have passed, I never thought the Goddess of the Rusted Shield would be pushed out of the council...'

Elbridge swallowed a groan and said again.

"Goddess, how did things get to that point? Two hundred years ago, didn't you hold more than twenty seats in the Heavenly Council? You were steadily expanding your church every year and increasing your seats little by little..."

A very long time ago.

The distant old world, so far back that Elbridge could hardly even imagine it, had been unbearably chaotic.

That chaos had come not from demons, but from the gods.

The gods, armed with immense divine power, would interfere in the affairs of the world as they pleased, and the long-held wishes of the sentient beings living on the earth were often washed away in an instant.

To put it a little more coldly, the lives of the sentient beings of the world below had no meaning at all. What meaning could there be in a life where anything could happen at a god's whim?

The Chief God, the god of gods, took pity on the sentient beings of the world.

So the Chief God limited the total amount of divine power the gods of the heavens could exert on the world.

Thanks to that, the tragedy of the sentient beings of the world becoming playthings for the gods was greatly reduced. But a new problem arose. The gods began to clash over which god would be allowed to exert how much divine power.

The Chief God fell into thought again, and finally observed another dimension and proposed an exquisite solution.

The gods would form the Heavenly Council, and seats would be allocated to each god through the faith of their followers.

The reason was that a god with many followers would need a great deal of divine power to care for all of them, while a god with only a few followers could look after them with relatively little divine power.

Two hundred years ago, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield had held twenty-two of the three hundred seats in the Heavenly Council, making her a true heavyweight among the gods.

And now, after two hundred years, she did not hold a single seat in the Heavenly Council? For Elbridge, it was hard to understand.

The goddess hesitated a little before answering.

- It is difficult to explain right now. Just remember that you are the child I cherish most. Anyway, come to the Holy City and I will explain the rest...

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield's voice grew smaller and smaller, then cut off. The goddess's divine power had reached its limit.

"Ah..."

It was not merely that she had been pushed out of the council. With only Elbridge left as her believer, even speaking with a believer must have been difficult for her.

Among the many gods who had been pushed out of the Heavenly Council, she was probably in a relatively bad position.

'What should I do?'

After a brief moment of thought, Elbridge reached a conclusion.

'As the goddess said, I need to go to the Holy City first and find out what happened.'

Elbridge stood up and headed out of the forest.

* * *

The scenery of the world had changed so much that Elbridge could not find the road at all.

So Elbridge walked wherever his feet took him. If he kept going in one direction, he would eventually come across a village.

Despite not knowing the way and having heard the shocking news that the order had fallen, Elbridge was in fairly good spirits.

He had been sealed away for a full two hundred years and had been released. Elbridge desperately hoped this situation was not a dream.

On the second day of walking aimlessly like that, Elbridge reached a fairly large village, or perhaps a small city.

The city was surrounded by a not particularly high wall, and the gate stood wide open, allowing people to come and go freely.

There were guards, but they did not seem to be intending to stop anyone.

'There didn't seem to be a city around here before... Anyway, that works out. Someone here should know the way to the Holy City Solenion.'

The Holy City Solenion was one of the largest cities in the eastern part of the continent.

It had a large population, developed commerce, and above all, it was famous as the city with the greatest number of temples to the gods in the eastern part of the continent.

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield's temple was no exception. Temples of the Order of the Rusted Shield were spread all over the continent, but the main temple was in Solenion.

'So the goddess must have told me to come to the Holy City.'

As Elbridge approached the gate, one of the guards looked him over with a distinctly displeased expression. Then came a strangely pointed cough.

"Hm."

Still, the guard did not stop Elbridge. Elbridge lightly passed by the guard and entered the city.

Beyond the gate was a small open square, and several groups of people were gathered there.

It looked as though they were people preparing to leave the city, and naturally, there was no face Elbridge knew among them.

Elbridge perked up his ears and peered around the square, then heard voices mentioning the Holy City Solenion.

'People heading to the Holy City?'

Elbridge looked in the direction the voices had come from.

Several large carts and polished wagons were lined up, and nearly twenty laborers were busy sorting cargo.

He also saw a fat, well-dressed manager giving various instructions to the laborers, while five or six men who looked like they had seen plenty of knife work lounged around the carts. It was a typical merchant caravan.

When Elbridge tried to approach the head of the caravan, a man with a scar on the bridge of his nose blocked him. He looked very much like a mercenary hired to guard the caravan.

"Who are you?"

Instead of introducing himself, Elbridge asked the mercenary a question.

"Where is this group headed?"

The mercenary with the scar on his nose raised one eyebrow and asked back.

"...headed?"

An unfamiliar reaction. But Elbridge did not mind and stated his business.

"I am looking for someone to travel with to the Holy City Solenion."

"We are going to Solenion, yes. The real question is what kind of bastard you are."

"I am a paladin."

The scarred mercenary snorted.

"Oh, a paladin, are you. Which god do you serve?"

"The Goddess of the Rusted Shield."

"Shield or whatever, why don't you get lost?"

At the unexpected reaction, Elbridge's eyes went wide.

In the past, when Elbridge revealed his identity, most people would reflexively show him respect.

That was all the more true because he was a paladin of a famous order, and Elbridge had been one of the most outstanding knights in that order as well.

Ever since he became a paladin, not a single person had treated Elbridge like this.

The scarred mercenary's story did not end there.

"Listen to this guy, naming a god I've never even heard of in my life... And a paladin? If you're a paladin, then I'm a paladin's grandfather, you bastard."

Elbridge immediately realized why the man was reacting that way.

'Looks like my head got rusty from being buried in the seal.'

First, the Order of the Rusted Shield's influence had plummeted to a horrifying degree.

That man looked as though he had never even heard the name of the Goddess of the Rusted Shield. Followers of obscure orders were often treated worse than if they had not mentioned the god they served at all.

Second, Elbridge's appearance was a problem.

Right now, Elbridge had no shining armor, and not even a shining sword or shield. Two hundred years had passed, and everything had rusted and worn away.

Also, he had not aged inside the seal, but his body had become gaunt, giving him a pitiful appearance. At a glance, he looked much more like a vagabond than a paladin.

Elbridge only then understood why the guard had looked at him so sourly.

'He must have thought another vagabond was about to show up in the village.'

As Elbridge hesitated, the scarred mercenary gave a snort of laughter.

"You bastard. I'm broad-minded, so I'll let it slide once. If you go around claiming to be a paladin, you'll get your head chopped off, so be careful..."

The mercenary spat on the ground one last time and turned away.

Despite his rough attitude and coarse language, being broad-minded was more or less true. Impersonating a paladin was punished even more severely than impersonating a noble.

If that mercenary had taken a cruel turn, Elbridge would certainly have been in a rather difficult situation.

Of course, Elbridge was not pretending to be a paladin, but he had no way to prove it right away.

Just then, the fat caravan manager shouted, "We're leaving!"

The caravan's carts and wagons began to move, and the mercenaries and porters followed behind them.

Watching the departing carts, Elbridge thought,

'Even if I can't join their group, if I follow those wheel tracks, couldn't I get to the Holy City Solenion?'

He was not the only one who had thought that.

"Excuse me, young man. Are you headed to the Holy City Solenion?"

When he turned his head, there was an elderly man.

He looked a little over sixty? His back was slightly bent, but he still looked fairly healthy.

"Ah, yes. That's right."

"My name is Rick. If you're going to Solenion, why don't you come with us?"

"Us?"

Elbridge looked behind Rick.

More than forty people were gathered there.

Unlike the caravan that had just left, they had no wagons and only a single cart, but there were actually more of them.

That said, among those more than forty people, there was no sturdy adult man. Only women, old people, and children.

'Are they people trying to head to Solenion by following the merchant caravan that just left?'

There was one questionable thing, though.

Right now, Elbridge's appearance was not much different from a vagabond's. Why would Rick ask someone like him to travel with them?

Rick answered Elbridge's question.

"I've traveled between this village and the Holy City at least thirty times. There are no bandits on the road from here to the Holy City, but wolf packs do show up now and then. Of course, even those packs are only six or seven wolves at most..."

Rick explained that he wanted to gather enough people so a wolf pack would not dare attack them.

But that was not the end of Rick's purpose.

"Do you have money?"

"...No."

"Then how are you planning to solve food?"

"I was thinking I could hunt small animals as needed, or eat wild fruit..."

"In that case, why not work as a porter?"

"A porter?"

Rick pointed to the one cart among the people.

"That one is my cart."

Elbridge glanced at the goods loaded onto the cart. One corner held bundles that looked like trade goods, but the remaining space was piled high with dried fruit, jerky, and the like, all of which could be stored for a long time.

Elbridge gave a small nod.

"So you were a merchant, sir."

"That's right."

"Instead of paying mercenaries, you gathered people to drive off wolves, and as a side business you sell food and daily necessities to the people traveling with you... Not bad. That's quite efficient."

As Rick listened to Elbridge, a glint appeared in his eyes.

"...You figured that out right away. Were you a merchant too? You've got a better eye than most."

"I am not a merchant."

"That's a relief. One person like me is enough in this area... Better not to have a competitor."

"In any case, you're saying I should pull that cart all the way to the Holy City?"

"In exchange, I'll provide food and lend you a blanket. Is that not enough?"

Elbridge stared at Rick for a moment, then answered.

"You had no intention of making me pull the cart alone from the start, did you? In the morning you pull it, and in the afternoon I will."

Rick looked a little dumbfounded, then burst out laughing.

"You figured that out? How?"

Elbridge glanced at the people behind Rick.

"The reason your group only has women, old people, and children is because young men can at least earn wages as porters on the road to the Holy City. The reason you came up to me is because there were no young men headed to the Holy City, isn't that right?"

"That's not what I asked. How did you figure out I had no intention of making you pull the cart by yourself?"

"You saw how thin I am, so there was no way you meant to make me pull that cart all day by myself. If that had been your thought, it would not have been wicked, just foolish."

Rick chuckled.

"Sharp. Still, providing food and blankets while also taking turns pulling the cart equally is ridiculous. I'll only help pull it for short stretches, before noon at the latest."

"Well, then let's just take turns pulling the cart half and half."

Rick crossed his arms.

"That is not for you to decide. You can only decide whether to accept my conditions."

Then Elbridge gave a snort.

"As if. The choice is mine."

"Why do you think that?"

"Didn't I tell you earlier? I'm clearly the only adult man headed to Solenion. If I don't accept your offer now, won't you be stuck in this village until the next caravan heading to the Holy City Solenion appears?"

Why had Rick been waiting for another caravan to depart? Because he didn't know the way to the Holy City like Elbridge did? No. It was because he wanted to trail behind the caravan ahead of him and hope the mercenaries there would handle any sudden trouble.

A cautious man like that would not delay his schedule indefinitely just because he didn't want to pull the cart a little more. Merchants were, by nature, people who earned according to how much they moved.

"..."

Rick was at a loss for words.

In the end, Rick stared at Elbridge and asked, "You. What's your name?"

"Please call me El."

"Fine, El. Do you want to learn the trade under me?"

"I'll pass."

"Hmm..."

Rick gestured to the people who had been waiting.

Soon, Rick and the others began moving along the wheel tracks left by the caravan that had left ahead of them.

Rattle, rattle. Only the sound of the cart moving and the quiet murmuring of the people could be heard.

How long had they been walking like that?

Rick, who had been walking in silence, called out to Elbridge in passing.