The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom: Part 1

“The Holy Kingdom’s stance is to tacitly acknowledge the existence of the Sorcerous Kingdom, right? They say it’s okay for people of the Holy Kingdom to go over there… right?”

There was no way to hide the fact that the Sorcerous Kingdom, with its armies of the undead, was an intolerable foe of the Holy Kingdom. Many people had urged them to send out troops when they thought of how the people in the Sorcerous Kingdom’s Capital of E-Rantel must be suffering. However, the Holy Kingdom presently faced the threat of the demihumans, and they would not be able to conduct military operations in other countries without first pacifying the hill region.

The feelings of the people aside, the leadership's response to the Sorcerous Kingdom did not escalate beyond half-hearted criticism.

“...The Sorcerous Kingdom, hm. Well, if you apply to the brass, you ought to be able to go over there as a member of the army. They view the Sorcerous Kingdom as a threat second only to the demihumans. It seems they want to ally with the Theocracy against them.”

“Really now. It seems there’ll be a lot of problems due to religious differences, then.”

“Yes, precisely. Well, that aside, if your affiliation doesn’t change, you can receive the country’s aid and you can skip those annoying immigration checks… I think. If you go over, you’ll be a godsend to the people who want to know more about the inner workings of the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

“Well, wouldn’t that be nice. Still, if I did that, I couldn’t just go around picking fights.”

“You… the way you say that so seriously is really headache-inducing.”

“I guess it’d be hard on you if it became an international incident, huh.”

The cold wind blew past them. For a while, Pavel went silent, his expression unchanged, but after that, he began muttering unhappily (as usual).

“I’m going to miss that ugly face of yours.”

Olrand smiled wickedly. It was a ferocious, bestial grin, but he was being uncharacteristically shy. Pavel had not said, “don’t go,” but neither had he said, “go.” He decided to make sure that he would have somewhere to return to.

“Sorry about that… Well, I’ll come back after I become stronger. Want me to train you up at that time?”

“Fancy you saying that.”

As Olrand chuckled, Pavel laughed back at him in turn. Their laughter was every bit as ferocious as two wild beasts growling at each other.

Just then, the bell rang.

It would seem that it was time to change over to the night shift. They had spoken at great length, so they would wrap it up with one more thing. As Olrand thought that, that notion evaporated from his mind as the bell continued to ring.

Pavel, followed closely by Olrand, looked to the hills.

Those bells meant “Demihumans sighted.”

Their visibility was clear up to to over four hundred meters away. In the past, there had once been forests and trees there, but the country had conducted a massive landscaping project as part of the wall’s construction to flatten it out.

However, at the furthest reaches of the expansive plains — where there were hills and other obstructions — they saw sparkles in the darkness and moving black shadows.

“Boss…”

It was impossible for Olrand to discern the true identities of those demihumans at this distance while in the dark. Therefore, he called on the man with the keenest eyesight.

“Yes, they’re demihumans… Snakemen,” Pavel immediately answered.

Snakemen had heads like a cobra and scaly, humanoid bodies, as well as tails. They were demihumans that were considered close relatives to Lizardmen. Their serpentine heads had venomous bites and their spears were coated in powerful toxins. Close combat with them was to be avoided as much as possible.

That said, Olrand and his men were seasoned veterans, and they possessed very high resistance to poisons. While their scales provided some protection, they were not hard enough to deflect metal weapons. They might be skilled with their tails, but one could simply consider them another weapon. In addition, they had the advantage at night due to their ophidian sensory organs, but that was not a problem.

Is leading the charge on them going to be our job? No, by the time they reach here, Boss’s unit would have shot them all to death.

Snakemen despised cold objects, so they did not use metal armor and other such items. As a result, it was a simple task for first-rate archers like Pavel and his men to fill them full of arrows.

“So how many of them are there, Boss?”

Usually, there would be less than twenty of them.

“...Boss?”

Olrand was briefly puzzled by the lack of a response. He looked at Pavel, and saw a look of clear vexation on that typically blank face of his.

“What’s wrong, Boss?”

“...There’s more of them? Could this be — this is bad! I’ve spotted members of other species! Armatts, Ogres, and are those Cavens?”

“What did you say?”