WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

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◈ Paladin of a Ruined Order

Chapter 29

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Red Mountains

The three of them headed for the Red Mountains, the hometown of Rombel and the dead dwarf.

The road south toward the Red Mountains was flat. Gentle plains and rolling hills, with the occasional forest path, stretched on and on.

The weather was good too. Summer was drawing to a close. Overgrown wild grass rippled and swayed in a peaceful dance.

Of course, scenery aside, it wouldn't have been strange for a demonic beast to leap out from somewhere. But with Elbridge and Rombel together, a demonic beast wasn't much of a problem.

Even so, Elbridge and Rombel were the only relaxed ones. Marcus looked like livestock being led to the slaughterhouse.

Marcus, who had been trudging along, asked, "Mr. Rombel. Do demons really exist?"

"Marcus. Do you not believe in demons?"

"I didn't before, but I do now."

Rombel folded his arms and asked back, "Then why are you asking?"

"It just doesn't feel real, thinking I might actually run into one. Anyway, if we keep going south like this, we'll really meet a demon, right?"

"Right."

Marcus's face darkened even more.

"Man, I'm going crazy. How did I end up with a fate like this..."

Marcus was a mercenary who never turned down a job if the money was good.

But not all jobs were equal. Marcus was willing to take on work tied to demonic beasts, but he had never intended to accept a request that meant facing a demon.

So why was Marcus at Elbridge and Rombel's side?

It was simple. It was because of the oracle Marcus had received from the God of Fox Rain.

"I'm going crazy. I'm really going crazy..."

Once he had received an oracle telling him to stick close to Elbridge, Marcus had only two choices.

First. Follow Elbridge as told, then face a demon.

Second. Refuse the oracle and face the wrath of a god that might come crashing down on him.

Both choices were enough to make him want to die, but he couldn't avoid choosing.

In the end, after a long struggle, Marcus chose the first option. The moment he received an oracle saying the god had taken an interest in him, he couldn't just defy it.

Marcus shuffled over to Elbridge with a deathly pale face.

"As for Mr. Rombel, he's just going home, so that's one thing. But Sir Elbridge, aren't you afraid of demons?"

"Not really, I guess... I'm fine."

"You really do have it easy. Unless the reward for this request is truly outrageous, I might die from sheer resentment."

Elbridge and Rombel chuckled. Marcus's worried expression was funny more than pitiful.

Some people were like that. They were born with a clown's streak.

Rombel said, "Marcus. Aim higher. Who knows, maybe one day you'll be called the Mercenary King of this age."

"The Mercenary King?"

"Yeah. Two hundred years ago, there was a guy called the Mercenary King. He wasn't a knight or a paladin, but he still did more than his share in the fight against demons."

"That was possible?"

"If it wasn't possible, I wouldn't be saying it. Marcus. Do you know the three things that define a warrior's ability?"

"Magical power, divine power, and talent."

Magical power meant divinity and mana.

That was the secret behind why paladins and knights could wield strength beyond ordinary people.

Divinity accumulated through battles with demonic beasts or demons, or through years of faith and training. Mana, on the other hand, could be accumulated through the Magic Tower's secret arts.

Divine power was the special power each church's god granted.

The greater a god's influence, the more divine power it could bestow, but how that power was distributed among believers was up to the god's judgment.

Lastly, talent meant individual ability.

Combat skill that could turn a battle even if magical power and divine power were lacking.

In the past, Elbridge had been above average in all three, but the part he had been rated highest in was talent.

If Elbridge had been a paladin who relied only on divine power and magical power, then after losing a large part of both, he might have been reduced to a shell of himself like other paladins.

No, it wouldn't have been strange if paladins with more divinity had outpaced him.

"The Mercenary King had built up a ridiculous amount of magical power. His talent was remarkable too."

"Hmm."

"If you think about it, there is no reason a mercenary has to lose to a knight. A knight is basically just a mercenary who spent money to build up a lot of magical power, isn't he?"

"Come on, knights and mercenaries are different."

"I'm not joking. Marcus, you could surpass a knight too."

"I don't know. I don't even want that. I just want to live an ordinary, trouble-free life."

Rombel gave a rough laugh.

"Marcus. Once you've caught a god's attention, you can't go back to the way things were. If you want to survive, you'd better start building real strength from now on."

"That's not exactly something I can just decide to do..."

While they were walking quietly, Elbridge draped his right arm over Marcus's shoulder.

Then he stretched out his left arm and pointed to a tree standing some distance away.

"There is a way. Marcus. Do you see that tree? That zelkova tree that's a little bigger than the others."

"I do, but..."

"It's one that's only just begun turning into a demonic beast."

Elbridge patted Marcus on the back.

"Go cut it down."

"...Out of nowhere?"

"That's how all beginnings are. Now, off you go!"

Elbridge gave Marcus's back a firm shove.

Marcus walked with a thoroughly cowed gait.

But his steps gradually grew more confident. Unlike the demonic beasts they had seen so far, the tree looked no different from the other trees around it.

There was no strange sheen running over it, and it didn't have a face.

Even if it was bigger than the trees around it, it wasn't absurdly huge.

'This is just you trying to mess with me.'

Marcus straightened himself in front of the tree.

'The trunk's too thick to cut at the base. If I cut the trunk instead, that should be enough to save face.'

Marcus raised his sword toward the trunk overhead.

The tree still stood there, only swaying lightly in the wind.

Marcus swung his sword.

Whoosh-

?

Normally, either the sword should have sliced through the trunk, or the trunk should have stopped the blade.

But there was no resistance at all.

He looked up. The branch he had just aimed for had bent slightly upward, as if it had drawn back a little to dodge the blade.

A chill ran down Marcus's back.

At the same time, something grabbed his ankle.

He looked down and saw tree roots. Roots that had burst out of the ground had wrapped around Marcus's ankle.

"This damn thing-!"

Marcus hacked at it desperately with his sword.

Thunk, thunk.

Cut marks appeared on the roots. But the thick roots would not budge. Cutting down a tree with a sword wasn't easy.

A branch that had crept up behind Marcus quietly wrapped around his arms and upper body too. Marcus's face turned deathly pale as he shouted, "S-save me-!"

At that moment, a short, stocky human-shaped figure sprang out from behind Marcus. It was Rombel.

Rombel lifted the double-edged axe he carried on his back and swung it at the tree's base.

One single axe blow.

But with that strike, the tree, whose trunk was wider around than a man's full embrace, was neatly cut down.

Creak-

The tree demonic beast toppled backward, holding Marcus in place with its trunk and roots.

At this rate, he wouldn't die, but he would probably get hurt badly. Then the pressure on his arms and legs suddenly vanished.

Thud-

The tree fell. But Marcus was not flung down with it.

When he looked back, he saw Elbridge with a sword in his hand. To keep Marcus's limbs from being hurt, he had skillfully cut only the trunk and roots.

Elbridge clicked his tongue.

"You came at it completely defenselessly. I knew this would happen."

"..."

Marcus's ears turned red with embarrassment.

Good grief. He had thought he had roughed it around long enough as a mercenary, and yet he had still acted like such an idiot.

'Maybe I'd gotten cocky from watching demonic beasts halfheartedly.'

But Elbridge did not scold Marcus.

"That's how beginnings are. You'll get used to it."

"...Gradually?"

"We'll hunt every demonic beast we see on the way south. Naturally, you will too, Marcus."

Marcus's face went white.

Half a month later.

Marcus's clothes had become ragged like a defeated soldier's, and his eyes were sunken and hollow. The past journey had not been easy.

Elbridge had not been joking when he said they would hunt every demonic beast.

Elbridge and Rombel had hunted down every kind of demonic beast they found, and Marcus had been forced to take the lead in almost every hunt.

Even so, the journey hadn't slowed.

They had moved relentlessly to cut the schedule down as much as possible, and the speed of their hunts had been astonishingly fast. Marcus had accumulated quite a bit of divinity over the past fifteen days, but he looked so exhausted he seemed ready to collapse at any moment.

'...If I could just sleep soundly for half a day, I'd have no more wishes.'

Unlike Marcus, Elbridge had not grown tired over the past two weeks. If anything, his body had become lighter and lighter.

Moving his body slowly, Elbridge thought, 'The rate at which my divinity is recovering is better than I expected.'

Thanks to hunting demonic beasts nonstop, Elbridge had recovered more than half of his peak divinity.

His condition now was nowhere near what it had been fifteen days ago.

'My divinity scattered while I was sealed, but the vessel that held it didn't disappear.'

He still had no confidence that he could subdue the demon.

But with Rombel at his side, if the matchup was good, there was a sliver of a chance. If it came to that, the God of Fox Rain would help.

While Elbridge was lost in thought, Marcus spoke up.

"Mr. Rombel. I have a question."

"What is it?"

"Why does Sir Elbridge treat you like a friend?"

From Marcus's point of view, the group's relationship was a little strange.

Marcus treated Rombel as someone above him, and Elbridge did too, in a respectful but fairly easygoing way. Outwardly, there was a big age gap between Rombel and Elbridge.

But Elbridge and Rombel treated each other like friends. Their age gap had to be at least two or three hundred years.

Rombel said as if he had been waiting for the question, "What other reason would there be? Because the brat has no manners."

Without the slightest hesitation, Elbridge kicked Rombel in the rear and then answered Marcus.

"I couldn't really treat him like a superior because he didn't seem to act his age. You can speak casually too, Marcus. You're at least ten years older than me, aren't you?"

Rombel rubbed his rear and muttered, "Just listen to the way he talks. His conscience is busted, busted..."

As they walked and chatted, a sheer cliff appeared in front of the three of them.

Its slope was steep, it was extremely high, and there were no trees or vines they could grab to climb up.

Marcus leaned his upper body back and looked up at the cliff. The leaves overhead were red.

"It seems like those trees are why this place is called the Red Mountains."

Rombel grumbled in reply, "That was part of it, but there were a few other reasons too."

"Other reasons?"

"You might find out soon enough. Follow me."

Rombel took the lead and strode forward. Soon, a valley appeared before the three of them.

It looked like the Red Mountains had been split open by a giant sword hacking straight down through them.

Judging by the shape, it seemed possible to enter the Red Mountains through that gap.

A fairly sharp stench drifted out from the valley entrance.

The reason for the stench was easy to see. A corpse was rotting at the entrance to the valley.

If he had found a corpse somewhere else, he might have thought it had been robbed.

But Marcus thought that wasn't what had happened to this corpse. There were no signs that anyone had touched its belongings. It was even half crushed.

"Did an animal bite him to death? No. That wasn't it either..."

As Marcus muttered, Elbridge answered, "That's one of the reasons these mountains are called the Red Mountains. They say anyone who tries to cross this valley without serving the God of the Iron Anvil dies."

"The God of the Iron Anvil is the god worshiped by dwarves and smiths, isn't it? Then doesn't that mean Sir Elbridge and I can't go in?"

"I heard they don't harm a believer's guest, so if Rombel leads the way, it should be fine. Rombel. What are you doing? Go on ahead."

"Fine. Wait there a second."

Rombel rubbed his hands together, took a deep breath, and stood before the valley.

"Hoo... Good. I'm going."

But Rombel did not walk forward with the confidence Elbridge and Marcus had imagined.

He took small steps, one at a time.

When Rombel reached the corpse,

A thunderous rumble shook the valley, and the two cliff faces slammed shut in an instant.

The speed was surprisingly fast.

"...?"

The poor corpse was crushed once more, and Rombel, as if he had expected it, sprang backward out of the valley.

Rombel gave Elbridge and Marcus a thumbs-up with a smug grin.

"How was that? Pretty nimble, huh?"

He had indeed been nimble. But that was not the important part.

Elbridge asked in confusion, "Rombel. You're a dwarf, aren't you? Why is the valley closing?"

What was even stranger was that Rombel had acted like he knew this would happen.

"Mr. Rombel. Don't tell me you converted?"

"No. I didn't convert."

"Then why..."

Rombel gave an awkward smile.

"The God of the Iron Anvil expelled me from the church. It's been two hundred years, and that petty god still doesn't seem to have any intention of pardoning me."

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