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◈ Paladin of a Ruined Order

Chapter 85

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Sonia

Elbridge's sword slid forward, seeking the gap in the sturdy armor.

But that was as far as it went. No sensation of the blade catching on chainmail, no sensation of biting into flesh.

Elbridge grasped the reason immediately.

'A spirit.'

A being that had left the material realm behind.

Scholars and priests had a natural fondness for dividing and defining things. That was why they classified nonmaterial beings by every criterion imaginable and hung countless names on them.

But those who fought on battlefields had no patience for that hobby, and lumped everything together under one word: spirit.

And every spirit shared one thing in common. Mere physical force couldn't put them down.

To land a meaningful blow on a spirit, you needed divine power, a mage's enchantment, or a special weapon.

There was only one conclusion. Elbridge's response hadn't been the right one.

The Ghost Knight paid no mind to Elbridge's attack and charged him without slowing down at all.

Whooosh-

But the attack felt less like the powerful charge of a mounted knight and more like a wave crashing over a rock, or smoke wrapping around something. The Ghost Knight's form hovered somewhere between solid and gas.

Elbridge tried to raise the shield on his left arm. Leonhardt's shield could protect him from the Ghost Knight's attack.

But his reaction came too late.

'...It's been too long since I faced a spirit.'

At this rate, he'd be caught in the Ghost Knight's attack.

Still, Elbridge wasn't especially worried. He had a seasoned companion.

Rombel swung his axe.

"Hup!"

Dwarves saw better in the dark than humans did.

That let Rombel identify the Ghost Knight's nature a hair faster than Elbridge, and foresee the trouble about to fall on him.

But it wasn't an attack meant to cut the Ghost Knight down. Rombel used the flat of his axe, fanning it like a wall between Elbridge and the Ghost Knight.

An axe blessed many times over and soaked in the blood of countless demons and demonic beasts made for an ideal weapon against spirits.

The smokelike shape reaching to engulf Elbridge got shoved back,

Clang!

The flat of the axe struck the Ghost Knight's armor.

Elbridge didn't waste the brief opening and thrust his sword forward again.

Unlike a moment ago, his sword now gave off a faint glow. Before he'd even asked, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield had granted him divine power.

Screech-

Elbridge's blade scraped against the Ghost Knight's armor and dug into it.

Faintly, he felt something catch on the blade's edge.

Elbridge understood at once.

'That landed.'

Whoooom-

The Ghost Knight left behind only a sound like wind blowing, then vanished into the air as if pulled away by something.

The black shape had moved through the dark night, so those with poorer night vision hadn't even caught what happened.

Walter asked, "What just appeared? What happened?"

Rombel slung his axe back over his shoulder and answered.

"A spirit showed up. We drove it off. Didn't fully put it down, though."

That was the end of the conversation.

Spirits had a way of stirring up people's instinctive fear.

Heinz, of course, and even Marcus, who'd seen his share of demonic beasts, had gone quiet with tension.

But the Goddess of the Rusted Shield delivered an oracle, full of herself.

- Elbridge. There was surely a reason your goddess stayed awake watching over you until this late hour.

A cow backing into a mouse and killing it by accident.

But Elbridge wasn't foolish enough to point that out.

"I've served the goddess a long time now, and still, her wisdom catches me by surprise."

- Same here, Elbridge. I truly wonder where the limits of a goddess like me even lie...

Elbridge still followed the Goddess of the Rusted Shield with sincere devotion, but lately he'd noticed his reverence fading little by little. No doubt the result of too many oracles and prayers passing back and forth.

Elbridge made the appropriate noises of agreement and loosened the vambrace on his right arm.

Then he held his arm up to the faint moonlight.

'So that's why it was tingling.'

The skin on his right arm had gone black with necrosis.

The result of his arm getting wrapped up in the spirit during his first attack.

Still, Elbridge wasn't especially worried.

- Wait just a moment. I'll heal it right away...

With that oracle, the goddess's presence faded. No doubt she'd gone to wake the Goddess of Spring Rain and Moss.

While Elbridge examined his tingling arm, quiet footsteps crept closer.

It was the woman who'd fled the instant the Ghost Knight appeared.

"Wait, did you just drive off the Ghost Knight?"

"Something like that."

"You must be pretty skilled, then... Huh? Are you hurt?"

The woman seemed to have sharp night vision. She strode right up and checked Elbridge's forearm.

Then she rummaged through a pocket, pulled out a grimy bundle of cloth, and held it out to him.

Elbridge took it on reflex, and the woman pulled out a small dagger.

"What are you doing?"

"Bite down on the cloth, quick. This needs to come off."

"That's not necessary."

"Just so you know, if you don't cut that off in time, you'll die. The black stain spreads over your whole body and you die in agony..."

There were plenty of people around, but the woman didn't seem to care.

Either she had a card up her sleeve, or her nerves were made of iron.

"Bite down, now. Dawdle any longer and I'll have to take it off at the shoulder. Don't worry about my skill."

But the standoff didn't last long.

A faint light began to swirl around Elbridge's arm, and his wound started to heal.

As the black stain covering his forearm faded, Heinz looked the most shocked of anyone.

"The Goddess of the Rusted Shield also possesses Healing Authority?"

"Yes. She holds a similar power."

"I've read quite a few records about the Order of the Rusted Shield lately... I've never heard of that."

"...It's not a widely known power."

Not widely known, and one that probably shouldn't be known at all.

Though the Goddess of the Rusted Shield herself didn't seem to think much of it.

Before long, all the discoloration on his arm had vanished.

The woman, who had been watching with her mouth hanging open, let out an admiring whistle.

"Impressive. You might actually turn out to be useful."

Marcus snorted.

"Who's being useful to who, exactly?"

"Me to you all. And you all to me."

"Doubt it. I don't see you being especially useful."

"No. I definitely will be."

The woman smiled, full of confidence.

Even under the faint moonlight, her white smile stood out clearly.

"I'm Sonia Dickens."

"Dickens?"

"Yep. Viscount Dickens is my dad. Don't you want to hear the story now?"

Sonia led Elbridge and his companions to a field a short distance from the city.

There stood a dozen or so cabins, solid-looking enough.

Signs of people, too. Elbridge walked ready to draw his sword at any moment.

Sonia explained the cabins' history.

"Settlers used to live here. Anyone who lived here and cleared the surrounding land got their taxes waived. But now it's Crow territory."

"Crows?"

"People after anything ownerless in the territory."

Elbridge, Rombel, Marcus, Heinz, Walter, and now Sonia.

Six people moving together drew reactions from all around.

"Sonia! Who are these people?"

"Skilled newcomers. They drove off a Ghost Knight. Impressive, right?"

"Ha! Already got a taste for lying at your age?"

Sonia brushed off the comments without much fuss.

Then, after a moment, she stopped in front of one of the cabins.

Sonia opened the door, and the six of them stepped inside.

Sonia covered the window carefully, then clapped her hands. Clap clap.

Flash-

A candle sitting on the table lit itself.

"A mage."

"That's right. Feel free to call me Sonia the Beautiful Mage."

The cheap candle gave off a foul smell and occasionally spat sparks, but its light let the group and Sonia see each other's faces.

Sonia looked to be twenty, maybe a bit older.

Her clothes could charitably be called simple, or bluntly called filthy. Her thick black hair had grease instead of shine to it. Her features were large and distinct, but her appearance alone made her look nothing like the daughter of a viscount's house.

Marcus rubbed his chin and asked, "You're really the viscount's daughter?"

"Of course I am. Doesn't nobility just radiate off me?"

She answered a question that could've been taken as an insult with a joke, no hesitation at all. Not someone with a tiring personality, then.

"You talk with everyone here awfully casually for a noble lady."

"My territory's in that state and I can't even get in. If I went around acting like some noble lady, wouldn't that just be pathetic?"

"A sensible young lady."

Rombel laughed. Rombel liked people like Sonia more than he liked the stiff, proper types.

"Right, Sonia. How did things end up like this?"

Sonia picked a burr off her clothes and flicked it into a corner of the cabin as she answered.

"This time last year, I was in Middlemarch. You know where that is?"

Marcus answered, puffing himself up a little.

"Course I do. Central Middlemarch. The city where all roads lead. Been there myself. Even went up to the top of the Central Magic Tower."

Sonia snorted.

"Sure you did... Anyway, I was studying abroad in Middlemarch. My living expenses came from home, obviously. But starting last spring, the money stopped coming. At first I figured something must've happened and held out, but even by summer, still nothing."

"So what did you do?"

Sonia shrugged.

"Borrowed money from people I knew and skipped town."

"..."

"Don't give me that look. I'll pay it back once I've got money."

The group's opinion of Sonia dropped a notch in their minds.

"I needed travel money to get back, didn't I? Anyway, I came home and found the territory in this state. Figured pretty quick that counting on my family for anything was a lost cause, so I thought I'd salvage what I could and find my own way."

Whatever else could be said about her, Sonia clearly wasn't an ordinary person.

A typical noble lady, someone like Avelyn, the Marquis of Solenion's daughter, would never have come up with such a practical response to a ruined territory.

"But I can't get into the territory because of those Ghost Knights. So I joined up with the people who came to loot it. I needed their help, and they needed my information."

"...Those people gathered to loot your territory. And you're fine working with them?"

At Elbridge's question, Sonia pouted.

"It's not my territory if I can't even get in, is it? Right now it's the Ghost Knights' territory... Anyway, I think of them as good business partners for now."

"So, what's your goal?"

"Get into the lord's castle and clean out anything valuable."

Marcus asked, "You're not after something else?"

"I've got a rough idea where the castle's treasures are kept. Why would I go after something else when there's treasure sitting right there?"

"Word is the Central Magic Tower's been busy researching demons lately. You wouldn't happen to have an interest in your territory's demon, would you?"

For the first time since the conversation started, Sonia lost her composure.

Her mouth fell open and her eyes trembled, which was a little funny to watch.

"...How'd you know that?"

"How do you think? I told you I'd been to Middlemarch. Didn't believe me?"

"So the part about the top of the Magic Tower too?"

"The view from above the clouds was breathtaking. The Tower Master told me to drop by anytime."

"Now that's going too far."

Sonia called it out flatly, and Marcus made a strange hand gesture.

He made a fist, then extended his thumb and pinky, touching the thumb to his lips and the pinky to his forehead.

Sonia let out an impressed sound.

"So you were serious."

But Marcus and Sonia were the only two who understood that gesture.

"Marcus. What was that just now?"

At Elbridge's question, Marcus hesitated.

"That, uh... it's an oath to speak nothing but the truth."

"Just that gesture does it?"

"Swearing by a god too often is disrespectful, you know... Think of it as an alternative invented for situations like that."

Elbridge, Rombel, Heinz, and Walter all nodded and copied Marcus's hand shape.

Wearing the expression of people who'd learned something good today.

Marcus hurried to steer the conversation back on track.

"Anyway, Sonia. Be honest. What's your actual goal?"

Having already reacted the way she had, there was no backing out now.

Sonia put on the most serious expression she could manage.

"Just so we're clear up front. Whatever state the territory's in, it's got nothing to do with me."

"Fine, fine. Just tell us."

Sonia hesitated a moment longer before speaking.

"My dad had a hobby of collecting orbs."

"Orbs?"

"...There's these strange orbs where something like smoke swirls around inside, taking on odd shapes."

Elbridge and Rombel knew exactly what those orbs were. A seal containing a demon's core.

Seals came in various forms, but mages tended to favor shaping them like orbs. Something about spheres being more stable.

"I only found out what those orbs actually were once I got to the Magic Tower, so don't go getting the wrong idea..."

But everyone except Elbridge and Rombel looked like they had no idea what the orbs even were.

Marcus asked, "Why bring up orbs all of a sudden?"

"That's..."

Sonia struggled to answer.

But it was plain that answering that question would only make the next one harder to answer.

So Elbridge cut in on their exchange and asked the most important question of all.

"Sonia. You said Viscount Dickens collected these orbs."

"Right."

Collecting meant gathering similar items together.

In other words, having just one item wouldn't count as a collection.

"How many of these orbs did your father have?"

Sonia answered, a little awkwardly.

"Kind of... a lot?"

Elbridge counted through every demon he'd encountered since waking from his seal.

The black giant. The flower demon beneath the Central Magic Tower. The God of Flowing Water.

'Setting the God of Flowing Water aside... I'd have to assume the archdemon was also released from a seal.'

The black giant. The flower demon. And the archdemon.

Elbridge asked, "Sonia."

"Yeah?"

"By your standard. Would three count as a lot?"

"...No."

That was a statement that Dickens Viscounty had a bomb sitting inside it. A massive one, at that.

Elbridge and Rombel's vision went dark.

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