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◈ Paladin of a Ruined Order

Chapter 28

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Brand

Funneling divine power was nothing new to Elbridge.

Even back in the old days, when paladins were dying for nothing, each combat church still fielded anywhere from several dozen to well over a hundred paladins.

The Order of the Rusted Shield, however, had at most enough paladins to count on both hands. In the leanest times, one hand was enough.

Given how many seats it held in the Heavenly Council, the Order of the Rusted Shield had an absurdly small number of paladins, so each paladin could wield far more divine power than paladins of other combat churches.

In a way, concentrating divine power was practically a tradition of the Order of the Rusted Shield.

But having few paladins and having only one paladin were completely different problems.

"Goddess. If something unfortunate were to happen to me, what would become of the Order's future?"

- Elbridge. Your goddess will do everything in her power to make sure nothing unfortunate happens to you.

"···."

That meant there was no proper countermeasure.

From Elbridge's point of view, though, it was not a reckless gamble.

No, in terms of success rate alone, concentrating divine power on Elbridge had the highest odds. Only the risk if things went wrong was enormous.

While Elbridge was walking toward the Hillside Slums deep in thought, another oracle came down.

- Elbridge. What do you plan to do about Bibeka?

"That is..."

Elbridge was not oblivious.

Over the past few days, while proselytizing with Bibeka's help, Elbridge had noticed that Bibeka's attitude was unusual.

And after stepping back and looking at the whole situation, he had become convinced that Bibeka had feelings for him.

"What do you want me to do, Goddess?"

- Elbridge. That is something only you can decide.

"Then... I will be honest with Bibeka."

Even from Elbridge's point of view, Bibeka was a pretty good person.

Her mouth was a little rough, but her character was upright and lively. If they took their time getting to know each other, the relationship might become even better.

But Elbridge had seen too many tragic endings for lovers.

People cornered by extreme situations tended to grow attached to one another easily.

There were countless people who fell for the comrades at their side in battle.

Many ended up becoming lovers that way, and some even held simple weddings in harsh conditions.

But as far as Elbridge remembered, the vast majority of them met bad ends. The battlefield was that kind of place.

- Bibeka will be heartbroken.

"I realized Bibeka had feelings for me, and she probably had an inkling of mine too. She didn't seem like someone who missed the signs."

- Probably. Even if she didn't realize it right away, she would slowly come to understand it...

He had reached the Hillside Slums by then.

But Elbridge did not go straight into the temple. He stopped in front of it.

'Is Bibeka still there?'

Elbridge drew a deep breath and stepped into the temple.

Bibeka was not there.

Instead, he ran into someone unexpected.

"Long time no see. Or maybe it hasn't been that long?"

He spoke in that awkward halfway-between-polite-and-casual way, and there was a scar across the bridge of his nose.

The mercenary Marcus was waiting for Elbridge. It was a welcome face in the middle of such a complicated mood.

"Marcus! Did you come to join the order?"

Marcus waved him off.

"Nothing like that. Something interesting came up, so I came looking for you. Something strange happened too."

"Interesting business, huh. Let's hear it."

Marcus glanced around for no reason, then lowered his voice.

"I was hanging around the Mercenary Guild a little while ago, and a rather unusual client showed up."

"An unusual client, huh. Was it a mage?"

"Not a mage. A dwarf."

"Hmm."

Dwarven culture was insular.

Even if a problem came up inside their group, they did not ask for outside help unless it was something serious.

If a dwarf like that had come to the Mercenary Guild to place a request, it was definitely no ordinary situation.

"What kind of request was it?"

"A knight, a paladin, a priest, a mercenary... anything would do. They said they were looking for the most capable person in Holy City Solenion. But they wouldn't say what they wanted with someone that capable. Same with the reward. They said they'd pay generously, but they wouldn't say exactly what the reward would be."

A request with neither the reward nor the content disclosed.

It sounded absurd, but with people as closed off as dwarves, it made sense.

"The others just brushed them off, but I had this gut feeling it was a big deal. So after thinking it over, I came looking for Sir Elbridge. Right now, Sir Elbridge is the most capable paladin in Holy City Solenion."

Elbridge thought for a moment, then answered.

"First of all, I doubt they're lying about paying generously. Dwarves don't skimp once they've been helped. They probably just haven't decided what to offer yet."

If it was not helping an individual dwarf but an entire dwarf tribe, he could probably get a suit of armor that wouldn't lose out to Magic Tower-made armor. It would not be hard to squeeze even more out of them.

After Elbridge said that with certainty, Marcus looked satisfied.

"Hmm. So it really is a big one. My instincts aren't dead yet."

"Where is the client? I'd like to talk a little more."

"They died."

"They said the request came in just a little while ago?"

"From the moment they came into the Mercenary Guild, they looked nervous, and then they just collapsed and died all of a sudden."

A dwarf desperate enough to ask outsiders for help. Then the client's sudden death.

Elbridge's instincts whispered that the moment he had feared most might be arriving.

At this point, they needed to find out what was going on.

Elbridge answered calmly.

"So it was both an interesting lead and a strange incident."

However, Marcus scratched the back of his head.

"The interesting lead is what I just told you, but I haven't told you the strange part yet."

"What is the strange part?"

"Just as I was trying to find you and head into the temple of the Goddess of the Rusted Shield, an oracle suddenly came down."

"···An oracle?"

An oracle for Marcus, who wasn't even a paladin, much less an archbishop?

Even by the standards of two hundred years ago, that was not something that happened often.

"Was it really an oracle? Not some hallucination?"

"A strange voice reached my ears... It did not sound like an ordinary person's voice. Anyway, the voice told me it was the God of Fox Rain."

Marcus's tone was a little irreverent for someone who had received an oracle, but Elbridge decided not to mind. If divine punishment came, Marcus would be the one to bear it.

"So what did you do?"

"I was startled, so I said I was neither a priest nor a paladin. Then they said that didn't matter. They said that if I came to the temple, they could give me a paladin rank right away."

"···."

"So I said being a mercenary was more comfortable, and they told me to do that. They said they'd keep a close eye on me even as a mercenary."

Thanks to the Goddess of the Rusted Shield, he had already given up a great deal of his illusions about the gods.

Judging from that, Elbridge thought the oracle the God of Fox Rain had given Marcus was probably not simple goodwill. There was likely some purpose behind it.

"By any chance, was that all the God of Fox Rain said?"

"Of course not. They said it was easier to bring me luck if I stayed near Sir Elbridge, so I should stick close to Sir Elbridge whenever possible. Ah, and there was someone else. A dwarf in the Magic Tower. What was his name again..."

"Rombel?"

"Ah, right. Rombel. They told me to get along with that dwarf too."

Elbridge and Rombel had one thing in common. Two hundred years ago, they had both been strong enough to be active on the front lines.

It left him with a strange, prickly feeling, as if something were about to come to mind.

Then the Goddess of the Rusted Shield grumbled.

- God of Fox Rain. That slippery one is using little tricks. All of my paladins have died of old age, and the ones left under me are a ragtag bunch... There is no doubt the God of Fox Rain is trying to put Marcus, who is clearly close to you, right next to you so he can snatch up the crumbs.

Elbridge whispered, "Crumbs?"

- Elbridge. Since you're bound to make a name for yourself, anyone at your side will probably gain a little honor as your companion. The God of Fox Rain is after those scraps. How unseemly...

"Goddess. Then should I push Marcus away?"

- That is... Hmm.

The goddess thought for a moment, then delivered another oracle.

- There is no need to push him away. If you keep Marcus at your side, Elbridge, you may benefit from it too. But it does feel a little irritating.

"I see. So you will be lodging a stern protest with the God of Fox Rain."

The goddess answered awkwardly.

- I have never actually spoken to that god before, so that is a little... And besides, the God of Fox Rain has eight seats, right? It would be best to let this one slide. It doesn't seem like the God of Fox Rain brought Marcus to your side out of any malicious intent either...

In short, it meant he had more clout than she did, so she would let it slide once.

Still, it was a statement that damaged the goddess's dignity quite a bit, so Elbridge had to work hard not to show what he was feeling on his face.

Marcus said, "Anyway, that dwarf named Rombel should be quite helpful in handling this request. Dwarves probably know things about one another. And there was the oracle too."

Elbridge stood up and answered.

"No point dragging our feet. Let's go meet Rombel."

Elbridge and Marcus headed straight for the Magic Tower.

Contrary to Elbridge's expectation that Rombel would be hard to pull away, Rombel didn't hesitate much at all and came right out of the Magic Tower.

"Is it okay for you to leave your post like that? You said you were swamped with armor requests."

"If you have complaints, you should have found me a successor when I asked for one."

The three of them headed for the Mercenary Guild.

But, as expected, the dwarf's corpse had already been handed over to the undertaker.

The three of them went to the undertaker they were directed to by the Mercenary Guild member.

Then the undertaker said flatly through the crack in the door, "You came to see the corpse?"

"Yes."

"Nonsense. I can't show a corpse to outsiders so carelessly."

A flat refusal.

But from Marcus's experience, a refusal like that usually meant it could be shown for two silver coins.

When Marcus held two silver coins through the crack in the door, the door swung wide open.

"I'll step away for a bit, so look quickly and leave. Don't go spreading stories elsewhere for no reason..."

"Understood."

The dead dwarf was a bearded man, and at first glance there was no way to tell what had killed him.

But that made one detail stand out even more.

Rombel studied the dwarf's face from different angles and said bitterly, "He's from the Red Mountains, just like me. Age looks about two hundred... Maybe someone I saw when I was young."

"Let's check the cause of death first."

"Right."

While Marcus watched with a blank expression, Elbridge and Rombel examined the body carefully.

They parted the bushy hair to check the scalp, then the forehead and the nape. Even after pushing aside the beard and checking the back of the neck, they found nothing.

Rombel said, "We'll have to take off his clothes. Help me."

Marcus came over quickly and helped Rombel.

When the outer clothes came off, a hairy torso was revealed, an unpleasant sight to Elbridge.

'Let's hope we don't have to take off the trousers too...'

Fortunately, that did not happen.

A wound like it had been seared by fire was found right in the center of the dead dwarf's chest.

Marcus muttered, "A brand. And a fresh one at that."

Elbridge thought so too.

But unlike ordinary brands, whose shapes were usually blurred by the burning process, this one had an extremely precise pattern: a sword piercing a snake.

"But that is strange."

Even stranger, despite the brand having seared the chest so deeply, not a single hair on the corpse's upper body had burned or shriveled.

He had seen it many times before, so Elbridge let out a deep sigh.

Hoo -

Unlike Elbridge, Rombel clasped Marcus's right hand.

"You were Marcus, right? Welcome."

"Yes? What exactly am I being congratulated on all of a sudden..."

Rombel grinned.

"The age of peace and boredom is over. Welcome to a world where you live alongside demons."

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