Chapter 140

Chapter 140

If there is only one fundamental truth in the world, it is that no one chose to be born.

However, why does life progress toward a destined death? Before that essential absurdity, all humans were weak.

But despite that absurdity, if you wanted to live, you had to realize the reason to live for yourself. Perhaps that was exactly the cruelest shackle placed upon humans.

When morning breaks and you open your eyes, you must believe there is a reason, a mission, in living today.

Would that not exactly be true faith, and the path to approach God. Therefore, would the process of gradually realizing the mission bestowed upon oneself not exactly be life itself.

However, right now, only emptiness was full in Rickart's chest. He had never felt such a great sense of loss in his life.

Neither the stars filling the night sky of the Keresi Plateau, nor the moon quietly looking down on the world, could fill Rickart's chest.

Merely the campfire burned, occasionally making crackling sounds. A faint burnt smell brushed the tip of his nose.

Rickart sat with his legs gathered together and merely stared at the burning flames. His mind was completely empty.

The red horse, sprawled out lying down, occasionally nudged Rickart's shoulder with its mouth. As if guessing its master's heart, it seemed to be telling him to cheer up.

Nevertheless, Rickart didn't react.

Only after swallowing his words hundreds, thousands of times did Hashim barely open his mouth.

"Let's go to Saramusa."

"......"

"People will be waiting."

"......Is there no magic to make a person snap out of it?"

"Well, your brother merely chose a path. He didn't go crazy. What you have to face is just that your paths have diverged. You too have choices. Leaving everything behind and returning to Adelorn, or facing it."

"What are you saying I should face?"

"Do you not know that better than anyone else."

"......"

Rickart remained silent. It felt like his heart was rotting and festering. Only, it was completely rotted, so it felt like it didn't hurt anymore.

"......I will apologize on his behalf."

"Hm?"

"The harsh words Billy, my brother, said to you Hashim, I will apologize instead. So please forgive Billy."

"Ricky, you are truly......"

Hashim looked at the slumped Rickart and couldn't continue his words. How could his heart be this kind; no matter how he looked at it, it seemed unfitting for swinging a sword. Like a lion born with the heart of a mild lamb.

"Don't keep it in mind. Wasn't I originally sold around here and there as a slave? I've heard harsh words plenty of times."

"Just because you've grown numb to it doesn't mean you don't get hurt."

"If you put it that way I have nothing to say, but get some shut-eye. I will stand watch today."

"Will sleep even come......?"

"Still, ask for sleep. It will be much better."

Following Hashim's words, Rickart used his baggage bundle as a pillow and just lay down on the ground. And rather than asking for sleep, he blindly closed his eyes.

Then immediately, even without any emotional agitation, tears flowed. He got choked up. His chest stung and throbbed. And with his closed eyes, his childhood days were seen.

More tears flowed, and it seemed sleeping was ruined having to wipe tears. But ironically, those sad past days became a dream and put Rickart to sleep.

A dream was exactly a dream because it was a dream. So it was fleeting, and sad.

Time passed and dawn broke, and Rickart opened his eyes. Seeing the campfire still burning albeit slightly, it seemed Hashim had paid attention.

However, he couldn't be seen. Rickart knew instinctively. That he had left. Yet the horse Hashim rode was still there.

Rickart raised his body. Sitting blankly with his hair sticking out, he watched the other side of the dark sky getting dyed in a purplish hue.

The stars bidding farewell to the day resembled the person leaving without a word. That it feels empty to suddenly look back.

Although he wore flashy armor and attire, sitting alone plumped down in the middle of the vast Keresi Plateau in the dim dawn, it seemed to have no meaning.

Still, just as Hashim said, sleeping and waking up seemed a bit better. Emotion surging up uncontrollably like yesterday was a bit lessened.

If so, is resolution what is needed now.

Rickart sat still lost in thought, not even knowing time was passing.

Marie and his friends, and people were waiting in Adelorn, but he couldn't return just like this right now.

Although he hadn't even thought a deep despair and sadness would be waiting at the place he reached after a long journey, Rickart knew there was no salvation for someone who rejected the call of destiny and ran away.

He couldn't think of any particularly good idea. However, around the time the sun slightly peeked its head over the horizon far away, he made one resolution. To win overwhelmingly and force a surrender.

Once the resolution was made, there was no hesitation in dusting off his seat and standing up. His body was somewhat stiff but he moved his joints this way and that to lightly shake it off.

He stepped on the campfire to extinguish it and packed his baggage. Giving the horses plenty of hay and carrots to eat, he mounted the red horse.

Tying the other horses together with a rope and holding it in one hand, Rickart headed to Saramusa bearing sadness in a corner of his heart.

However, whether that sadness was for what had passed, or for what was to come, couldn't be known.

Departing in the morning and advancing with somewhat hurried steps, he could arrive safely in Saramusa during the afternoon. Looking at it militarily, it was practically right under the nose from Karagosa Citadel of the Flame Knights.

The two branches that sprouted from a single stem had now become mortal enemies confronting each other. Exactly like the brothers.

Saramusa Fortress was located at the point where two streams of rivers met. The two rivers met each other, then split into two again and flowed.

A huge aqueduct built in the Ancient Empire era, crossed the city, and even though it was a structure built almost a thousand years ago, it still stood solidly fulfilling its function.

Clear streams of water drawn from the mountains supplied water to the city. It was used for agricultural water, and also as drinking water.

The people who had followed Rickart settled down here. They reclaimed the dry soil and planted the seeds they cherished like their lives. They continued their lives again.

However, they were in an extremely vulnerable state. Because Saramusa Fortress was a typical military fortress, it wasn't a facility capable of accommodating many people.

The knights of the Flame Knights seemed to pay attention in their own way and scout the surroundings. Discovering Rickart, they welcomed him unexpectedly glad. Completely opposite to Vilter.

"Did the conversation with your brother go well?"

Rickart shook his head. Then regret showed exactly on the faces of the knights.

"Our Commander is waiting. Let's go."

The knighthood was split so there were two Commanders. Their Commander was Raimund whom Rickart had met previously.

By the way, perhaps because coming and going was inconvenient, he wasn't staying in the fortress but living in a barrack below the fortress.

He, having already come outside the barrack beforehand, greeted Rickart. As Rickart dismounted his horse, he too asked the exact same question as the knights he met earlier.

"Did the conversation with Sir Vilter go well?"

"No."

"......In the end, must brothers aim swords at each other. Ah, I wasn't speaking of you and Sir Vilter."

"Do not mind it. Since it is the truth."

"Then, what do you intend to do now?"

"I intend to break him. If his army is crushed, my brother will have no choice but to fold his thoughts."

Raimund fully understood Rickart's feelings. Rather, they felt a sense of mutual sympathy. Because the knights of the knighthood were also as tightly knit to each other as blood-sharing brothers.

"By the way, Sir Rickart, do you have combat experience?"

"So much it overflows."

"Where did you experience combat?"

"The Eastern Expeditionary Grounds."

"?"

"Charging through mud sinking up to my knees, colleagues dying while following foolish orders knowing they were wrong, rotten fruits and moldy bread, nightmares keeping me awake at night, freezing toes off in winter were not just one or two people. I experienced all of it."

Experiences that couldn't be known without experiencing actual combat flowed from Rickart's mouth.

Then Raimund was slightly bewildered. Mostly because Rickart went around wearing flashy armor, he thought he was a knight who had only mastered jousting combat and merely had outstanding skills.

A merciful knight with exceptional skills who likes showing off. That was his first impression of Rickart. Yet he seemed to have gone through unexpectedly desperate combat, hence the bewilderment.

Regarding a war from a hundred years ago, Raimund also wasn't exactly taught about it so he didn't know well, and just figured as much.

What's important wasn't the authenticity of his words but the fact he has combat experience. Honestly, you could tell just by looking at such a person.

Raimund felt that Rickart's calm gaze was like two sides of a coin. He could faintly feel that peculiar thing of a murderer lurking beyond that calm gaze.

And that led to a sense of kinship. Because all the knights of the knighthood were also similar. Murder machines thoroughly trained and forged with the flames and blood of the battlefield.

"You have had experiences similar to ours."

"So, Sir Raimund, do you think there is meaning in those experiences?"

"I do not know. Since our predecessors have done it for hundreds of years, we merely do it too. Guarding the borders of the Empire. But since the Emperor cast us out, I do not know what to do now. However, Sir Vilter's method is not it."

In a word, they were guard dogs that had been abandoned by their owner. The value they had treated like life, duty, and honor for hundreds of years had disappeared overnight.

"How much is your military strength?"

Rickart asked.

"200 knights, 300 squires, and 200 soldiers. Even auxiliary forces are lacking. Conversely, Sir Vilter's forces are 800 knights, 1200 squires, and 2000 soldiers."

200 knights was truly an immense military strength. Literally it meant 200 fully armed heavy cavalry, a strength hard for kings of decent countries to possess as well.

However, maintaining all this required a lots of money. So the knighthood had been running a financial business.

But right now, their source of money was cut off, and they were even framed with a dishonorable stigma.

Their lowered morale was unimaginable, to the point they debated whether to sell their knightly steeds they valued more than their own lives.

Just the cost of hay to feed the horses was an enormous sum. Let alone the wages to give the squires and soldiers, there was no need to speak.

With the actual situation like this, it was perhaps natural that extremists filled with malice like Vilter sprang up. If you look into the inside story, things like establishing a country or whatever might all be excuses.

On the other hand, Raimund and the knights following him were trying to keep their honor as knights and as humans until the very end.

So right now, the brothers of the split knighthood intensely hated each other. They were exactly traitors to each other.

"Is there a reason?"

Rickart asked.

"What reason do you mean?"

"I mean... the reason you dare to not follow my brother."

At Rickart's question, Raimund's expression became heavy for a moment.

Avoiding Rickart's gaze, he looked far away at the people reclaiming the devastated farmlands again.

Because he too was from Franken, he had blond hair, and he looked older than Rickart, though not extremely old.

His hair, slightly covering his ears, swayed in the wind.

"It was an infidel girl. The last one I killed. When I raised my sword high, that girl looked up at me. In those large eyes, there was no resentment, nor hatred. She merely looked at me with pity. Why would she do that? The girl knew. That God would abandon me. That I had forsaken God..."

Raimund was tormented by guilt. Even going through the same thing, some become filled with more malice and push themselves harder, while others look back upon themselves.

There were various reasons why the Flame Knights split into two, but the most fundamental reason was exactly that.

When the thought starts arising that this doesn't seem right regarding what one does, paths had no choice but to split.

Over the past hundreds of years, even if they had such feelings they might have just suppressed them and lived fulfilling their duties, but it wasn't so now, cast out by the Emperor.

"No. God did not abandon you, Raimund."

"Well..."

"There is nothing God abandons. Nor is He someone who can be forsaken just because one forsakes Him. Look at yourself right now. Perhaps the path leading to salvation has already begun. Although it is difficult right now."

"......Do you really think so?"

"I don't doubt it. When things are wrapped up, you may follow me. When the war in Adelorn is also over, I will provide a foundation for you and those who need it. The oath of chastity is over now. Start a family and raise children with love. Love your neighbors. I am certain that is the way to repay God, and the way to apologize to the infidel girl."

Raimund made an expression seemingly somewhat shocked by Rickart's words. And with a trembling heart, he looked at Rickart's unwavering hazel eyes.

Perhaps those were the words he wanted to hear the most. Moreover, completely different from knights who were generally ignorant besides combat, Rickart had outstanding insight and overflowed with warmth. Warmth conveyed from heart to heart, sincere encouragement that is.

Above all, he had a firm, unwavering faith.

"By the way, are supplies sufficient?"

"......Yes? Ah, about that, King Santonio doesn't support us that well. I understand. Even to him, he wouldn't be able to completely trust us."

From the King's perspective, they weren't exactly swearing loyalty to him, but taking them all in meant he couldn't handle the maintenance costs.

So King Santonio seemed to be just giving them some leftover land and looking for ways to utilize them.

People and horses must eat and drink to move and fight; they couldn't wage battle without supplies.

"Introduce me to King Santonio. I will try requesting support."

Raimund found it hard to answer readily. Precisely because this strange hero hadn't met him for long, yet was drawing his heart. That was somewhat scary.

However, there was nothing they could do right now either. Even though making the right choice, rather than just staying discouraged and disheartened, betting on hope was much better.

"I understand. Let us go. I will guide you."

The sinful knight felt a piece of the light of salvation from Rickart.