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◈ Paladin of a Ruined Order

Chapter 56

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Festival Eve

"If you sealed a demon, then... it's not Ashfen you're talking about, is it?"

Elbridge answered Vice Bishop Heinz's question.

"Is Ashfen the name of the village where a demon appeared in the fall?"

"That's right."

"I only heard that a demon appeared there. But I also heard they lost to it."

"You know your facts. So where did you seal a demon, then?"

"Middlemarch."

One of Vice Bishop Heinz's eyebrows tilted up crookedly.

"You mean Middlemarch in the central region? The City Where All Roads Lead?"

"Yes. I went to Middlemarch and arrived in Solenion yesterday."

Vice Bishop Heinz's expression turned serious.

"If it's a lie, leave. If it's the truth, stay seated."

"If you're doubtful, contact the Central Magic Tower."

Magic Towers could communicate with each other.

The price was absurd for an ordinary person to use, but for the Order of the Golden Tray, it wouldn't be much of a burden at all.

Vice Bishop Heinz said, "The mages of the Central Magic Tower are famous for their skill. They have no paladins, but their knights are known to be excellent as well."

Elbridge smirked. He'd caught the meaning tucked inside Heinz's out-of-nowhere compliment.

"You think I quietly rode on the coattails of the central mages and knights."

"Facing a demon alone is impossible. What matters is how much of a role you actually played."

"Contact the Central Magic Tower and ask the Vice Master to confirm. Tell them not to exaggerate what Elbridge showed, just to describe it plainly. The Vice Master will certainly do that for you."

"Hm."

Over the course of meeting countless people, Vice Bishop Heinz had come to a few truths.

One of them was that liars and braggarts could never stop themselves from showing off.

And to Heinz's eyes, Elbridge's tone was far too plain to be a braggart's boasting.

"I'll contact the Central Magic Tower before the day is out. Not because I doubt you, but to understand the scope of what you accomplished."

"Please do."

Heinz rose from his seat and said, "By the way, you've come at a remarkably good time."

"Coming during the year-end voting period is certainly good timing."

"No. That's not what I meant. You said you'd heard about Ashfen, didn't you?"

"As I said earlier, I only know that they lost to a demon there."

"Do you know about the Dickens Viscounty incident?"

Elbridge nodded.

"You received a letter from Baron Riverford saying Dickens Viscounty had been struck by a demon. I was the one who delivered that letter."

"Ah, that was you... Then this will go quickly."

Heinz pointed his staff at a map on the wall.

"Here is Dickens Viscounty, and here is Ashfen."

Red circles had been drawn at both spots Heinz pointed to.

"What does the red circle mean?"

"A city where a demon appeared."

"Then what's the circle between Dickens Viscounty and Ashfen?"

Elbridge asked even though he'd already guessed the meaning of the red circles. That was exactly why he asked. There weren't just two circles. There were three.

"Same thing. A merchant who went there for a trade found bodies and reported it to the church."

Elbridge's eyes turned serious as he looked at the map.

The reason was simple. The three red circles lined up in a straight row.

Most demons couldn't have their appearance points predicted in advance. Once one showed up, the only choice was to rush there as fast as possible and respond. That was how the paladins of the old Order of the Rusted Shield had always done it.

But there were also demons whose appearance points could be estimated. Cases like the red circles on this map, where a certain regularity existed between the points of appearance.

Demons never appeared where there were no people.

If you connected the red circles in a straight line, you could estimate where the demon would appear next.

Elbridge stared at the map and murmured, "The next place the demon appears will be Solenion."

"Sharp eye."

But Elbridge's line of thought wasn't finished yet.

"Are the dates beside the circles the dates the demons appeared?"

"They're estimated dates, but... yes."

Elbridge put his hand on the map and began comparing the dates and distances between the circles.

Vice Bishop Heinz looked a little flustered.

"You. Can you predict when a demon will appear?"

"Yes."

"How? That's information we barely managed to dig up from old records..."

Elbridge answered halfheartedly.

"It just sort of happened."

It might be rare, precious knowledge now, but in the past it had been common sense.

Elbridge studied the map closely.

The distances between the three circles varied. But when the distance to the next city was long, the demon appeared after a long gap. When the distance to the next city was short, it appeared relatively soon.

Just as Elbridge expected, the demon was moving at a fixed pace.

'Dickens Viscounty this spring. The second city at the tail end of summer. Ashfen about forty days ago...'

Elbridge said, "The demon will reach Solenion within ten days at the most."

That was all Elbridge could determine.

Since the map wasn't perfectly accurate and the demon's appearance dates weren't exact either, there was bound to be some margin of error in the estimate.

But one thing was clear: the demon would appear in Solenion sometime between the end of this year and early next year at the latest.

"Right. That's the problem."

Vice Bishop Heinz let out a deep sigh.

"The demands the combat churches went on about? On an ordinary day, I wouldn't have listened to a word of it. Hand over a heavenly seat to him using our own money? That's absurd. But the timing is bad. We need their strength."

"If you believe you need the combat churches' help, why haven't you finished negotiating with them?"

"Because their demands were excessive."

Elbridge thought about it.

A demon would appear, and the world would fall into chaos.

Was it really excessive for the Order of the Golden Tray, which held sixty-one seats, to give up six or seven of them to the combat churches?

"We look selfish, don't we? It probably seems like the right thing to do would be to quickly hand over seats to the combat churches. In the short term, that's true."

"Are you saying it's different in the long term?"

"Yes. Have you ever heard that half of any war is supply lines?"

Elbridge nodded, and Vice Bishop Heinz continued.

"This is only the beginning. No one knows how many years this war with the demons will drag on. Decades, maybe centuries... And our Order of the Golden Tray has to handle the supply and financial support for countless combat churches through the whole long war."

"That's a fine point."

"The problem is that if our influence declines too sharply, we won't be able to carry out that duty. I looked through old records, and once the war against demons began, the Order of the Golden Tray's seats only ever shrank, year after year."

"I'm sure they did."

Vice Bishop Heinz's account was accurate.

Except Elbridge had never seen the Order of the Golden Tray's seats decline. The decline had ended before Elbridge was even born.

During the era Elbridge had been active, the Order of the Golden Tray's seats had always stayed at roughly the same level.

"We're not saying we won't give ground, and we're not saying we won't support the combat churches. But we have to control the pace of that concession. Handing over the Order of the Golden Tray's seats too quickly is no different from eating the seed grain meant for next year's planting."

Old Vice Bishop Heinz's eyes were full of conviction.

It was the face of someone ready to weather people's criticism in order to do what he believed was right.

Looking back, the Order of the Golden Tray had once been exactly like this.

People of the past had pointed fingers and called the Order of the Golden Tray selfish.

But they simply hadn't fought on the front lines themselves. They opened their storehouses to feed and clothe the paladins of other churches, and helped train new paladins.

Of course, they'd often acted like misers too... but not to a degree that was hard to understand.

Vice Bishop Heinz added one more thing.

"This is a decision made for the sake of everyone in this world."

Elbridge suddenly recalled what Felix had said yesterday.

Felix had said the combat churches needed to claim seats as fast as possible, for the sake of everyone in the world.

Vice Bishop Heinz's argument wasn't so different from Felix's. Only the conclusion was the exact opposite.

"This conversation has run long. In any case, I won't forget your request. But whether I negotiate with you or with the combat churches, I still don't know."

"...Understood."

Elbridge had thought about visiting the Order of the Olive Tree too, but it seemed there was hardly any need now.

Elbridge left the temple of the Order of the Golden Tray and trudged through Solenion's crowded streets.

Walking through the market like that, he heard a loud shout.

"Anyone who hasn't offered a prayer yet! We'll close your deal on the best possible terms! Lowest fees! The largest group signed up so far! The more people we gather, the better our negotiating position, you all know that! Don't hesitate, come on over!"

Elbridge turned to look. Some young man had climbed onto a platform and was shouting. White hands, surely, meant people exactly like that.

Somehow, it drained him.

Elbridge dropped down onto a wooden crate by the roadside.

Watching the busy crowd pass by, everything felt like a dream.

Elbridge turned over Felix's words, the High Paladin's words, Vice Bishop Heinz's words in his mind.

Elbridge knew better than anyone how difficult the coming fight against the demon would be.

But at the same time, Elbridge had been ignoring the fact that the fight against the demon wasn't everything.

People never truly unite, not even before a demon, not even at the crossroads of survival, not even at the border between life and death.

People fight each other endlessly to push their own thinking through, and to protect their own interests.

Sometimes the churches' fighting among themselves is fiercer than the battle against the demon. Force has even been mobilized in disputes between churches before.

How good would it be if everyone could join hands as one and fight the demon together.

As Elbridge sat there blankly watching the crowd, an oracle came down.

- Elbridge. You look like you've lost your strength.

"Goddess. Did you just hear the conversation I had with Vice Bishop Heinz?"

- I heard it.

Until now, Elbridge hadn't had much to say, so he'd only asked the Goddess of the Rusted Shield for encouragement.

But right now, Elbridge desperately needed her sincere support.

"Goddess. I truly need your heartfelt encouragement right now."

- It breaks my heart that all I can offer you is the words "keep your chin up." But Elbridge, your goddess will always believe in you, and will always be by your side.

Elbridge felt human warmth in the goddess's oracle. Or should he call it divine warmth instead.

- Elbridge. Go find Marcus and Rombel today. Eat rich food, and drink good wine until you're drunk. Speak your mind freely. Let the shouting of the people around you be your backing music, and sing loudly. And then, without thinking of anything at all, sleep deeply. This is the task your goddess entrusts to you. Elbridge.

For some reason, Elbridge felt a little happier.

"Elbridge, your goddess's devoted paladin, will surely carry out the task you've entrusted to me."

As Elbridge clasped his hands together in prayer, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield burst into a clear, bright laugh.

Somehow, strength seemed to well up in his body.

Just as Elbridge was about to rise, two people approached him.

One was someone he'd seen that morning. The High Paladin of the Order of the Bloodstained Spear.

The other was a lightly armored woman knight, with a laurel wreath emblem drawn right at the center of her chest. Judging by the ornamentation on her pauldron, this woman knight also seemed to be a High Paladin.

The High Paladin of the Order of the Bloodstained Spear said, "Sir Elbridge. It seems you've had a talk with Vice Bishop Heinz."

News traveled fast, indeed.

"I just finished talking with him. What's going on?"

Elbridge tilted his stance slightly, defiant.

Elbridge now had recovered far more strength than he'd had during the last Grand Festival.

He was confident he could easily overpower them even if they drew their swords right now, so he had nothing to hold back.

The High Paladin of the Order of the Laurel Wreath answered, "We'd appreciate it if you could keep in step with the combat churches, as much as possible."

Elbridge smirked.

"Do you know that a demon will appear in Solenion within ten days at the most?"

"We know."

This time the answer came from the Order of the Bloodstained Spear.

They hadn't even brought that up earlier.

"That's exactly why we came to find Sir Elbridge. We won't stop you from negotiating with the Order of the Golden Tray, but please promise us one thing."

"What is it?"

"If a demon appears before the voting ends, please don't fight it until the year turns over. The more urgent the situation, the stronger our position in negotiations."

And then the High Paladin of the Order of the Bloodstained Spear closed with exactly the words Elbridge had expected.

"This is for the sake of everyone in this world."

Was this the third time he'd heard that line?

Elbridge couldn't help bursting into laughter.

He wanted to get drunk, just like the goddess's oracle had said.

"I see."

Elbridge said nothing more and turned to walk away.

Whatever they made of that reaction, neither of the two High Paladins stopped him.

Elbridge walked toward the Magic Tower, looking for Rombel.

He walked for a while like that. Gradually, the noisy voices of the crowd began to quiet down.

Elbridge looked around. People were looking up at the sky. Elbridge's gaze followed theirs upward.

A purple cloud was rolling in from the east. That familiar, grotesque purple cloud.

Watching the cloud, Elbridge thought that getting drunk today was clearly off the table.

Elbridge stood still and offered a prayer to the goddess.

"Goddess. What do you think I should do?"

Elbridge left the choice to the goddess.

But unlike everyone else he'd met today, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield did not force anything on Elbridge.

- Elbridge. Countless gods set their sights on seats. But to your goddess, seats are only a means, and only a result. Of course, if I told you a second seat didn't tempt me, that would be a lie... but just do what you believe is right.

Elbridge nodded, and walked toward the direction the cloud was coming from.

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