074. Salt crystal (5)
That morning, Calmen, who was off duty, got ready to go out early.
Instead of a knightly uniform, he wore casual clothes and carried only a sword.
“boy. Aren’t you tired? These days, everyone is busy staying in their dorms whenever they have a day off, so why do you always go out?”
“You must have found a lover these days. What kind of girl are you? “Are you pretty?”
“… … .”
Kalmen glanced at his fellow knights who spoke to him in a dull tone, then turned away without answering. Because they were guys I didn’t really want to deal with.
“Wow, that guy! “You bastard, why are you acting like that these days?”
“Hey, leave it alone. You know? These days, the prince… … .”
“Ah, what happened in the 2nd Knights… … .”
I can hear people whispering behind my back.
Kalmen clenched his teeth.
Kalmen stopped by downtown and bought some groceries and a bottle of decent alcohol.
The price was a bit burdensome for a knight’s salary, but it was worth it. Every time, I would get scolded for doing something pointless, but every time I visited, the liquor bottle would always be empty.
He hurried on and arrived at a slum on the outskirts of the capital in the morning.
However, the atmosphere of the town I visited after almost 10 days was somewhat chaotic.
Armed guards roam the village, and occasionally inquisitors from the Knights of St. Marsyas can be seen.
And everyone was coming out of their houses and talking.
“… What’s going on?”
Kalmen asked as he approached the people gathered.
Right then.
Wow!
The sounds of breaking furniture echoed loudly from across the street.
The guards and an inquisitor were making a mess inside the small clinic, the only one in the neighborhood.
“Are there any more patients hiding here?”
“Knight Sir! These people are just skin disease sufferers. “It’s not like a devil’s curse!”
“I don’t know. A rash is an early symptom of a curse! “If you keep interfering, I will consider you a devil worshiper and take you away with me!”
“Oh my, Nari! Then please, just this child! “I’m just a kid with a fever, okay?”
“Hey, it’s noisy! “Take this guy with you!”
Soon, people are being dragged out one by one by the guards.
As Kalmen was staring at the scene with his mouth open in a daze, the old man standing next to him clicked his tongue and said,
“As you can see, the Inquisitors have arrived. “They told me to bring all the patients with rashes to the Heresy Tribunal by the end of today.”
“A patient with a rash? Why suddenly… … .”
Then the old man shrugged his shoulders and said.
“Recently, there was a curse that caused people to turn gray, right?”
“Ah, the Gray Plague.”
“what? “Isn’t that a curse and a plague?”
This was a fact already known to everyone. However, it appears that the news has not yet reached these slums in detail.
But why is the Heresy Court, which clearly knows the truth, rushing to drag them away?
The old man tilted his head, looked puzzled, and continued speaking.
“Anyway, wouldn’t all the people under that curse have been taken to the Heresy Tribunal? But from what Inquisitor Nari said today, the rash appears in the early stages of the curse. So now it seems like they are picking up all patients, even those with rashes.”
“Oh, yeah… … .”
“Anyway, they say they’ve been combing through the slums for the past few days. “Maybe this village will be the last.”
“okay.”
Kalmen looked at the people being dragged away with mixed eyes and then turned around.
There were many things that high-ranking noblemen did that were sometimes difficult to understand.
Maybe it was the work of some higher-ups who still believed that this disease was a curse. It seems like they are trying to capture as many people as possible before guidelines for managing Gray Plague patients are established.
Kalmen walked a little further and arrived at an old hut located at the edge of the slum.
“Captain, I’m here.”
After knocking on the door, I went inside without getting an answer as always. However, there was a musty smell in the house that was different from usual and that was difficult to describe.
“… “Captain?”
Feeling puzzled, Kalmen looked around the dark cabin and found a man lying in a corner, wrapped in a blanket.
“Captain!”
He quickly ran over and shook the man.
“Captain, why are you doing this? What makes you uncomfortable?”
However, the man did not respond at all to Calmen’s call.
I don’t know what happened in those few days, but my body became skinny and my body temperature was extremely low.
Only his bushy beard that occasionally shook slightly showed that he was still breathing.
“lawmaker! “I’ll take you to the doctor quickly!”
Kalmen was in a hurry, so he put the man on his shoulder and tried to run out. However, he soon realized one eerie fact and stopped in shock.
Heresy Inquisitor.
Outside, the Inquisitors are currently rounding up all the Gray Plague patients.
“no way… … .”
Only then did the man’s appearance come into view as the sunlight shone through the open door of the cabin.
Rashes covering my entire body and skin turning gray here and there.
A chill ran down Calmen’s spine.
‘… Die! If you leave now, you will be taken straight to the Heresy Tribunal and killed!’
Holding his chin, which was starting to tremble, with one hand, Kalmen tried to shake his head, which had turned completely white.
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thought. Let’s think about it.
First of all, it is impossible to take the leader out of here without the Inquisitor knowing.
You have to hide like this until the search is over, until the night when everyone in the neighborhood is asleep.
And when night falls, let’s go to the medical center attached to the imperial palace.
There, treatment guidelines for gray plague patients would certainly have been properly provided.
After that, I couldn’t even remember what spirit I was moving.
They changed the man’s clothes, which were covered in vomit and sewage, and turned all the clothes he was wearing into kindling.
We freshened up a filthy cabin that, from the looks of it, had not been in use for several days, and randomly threw together the groceries we had brought in to make a tasteless stew.
So when the Inquisitor, accompanied by guards, finally came to the cabin, Calmen was able to greet them with a smile, pretending to just eat a meal.
“Are you the only one who lives here?”
“no. This is my uncle’s house, and I came to stay for a few days on vacation. “He went out into the city, but he’ll probably come back tomorrow.”
Just in case, I didn’t tell the flimsy lie that it was his house, considering that I might ask the people in the neighborhood to compare.
“… Hmm, really?”
The Inquisitor looked at the cabin with fierce eyes.
His eyes turned to the empty bed and closet, and then he glanced at the guard standing behind him.
Soon, a guard came striding inside and arbitrarily thrust a knife into the bed without asking permission. Phew. Phew.
Still, there was nothing but straws flying, so this time I stabbed the knife into the closet. Sigh. Pajik.
“No, if the furniture is damaged like this, what will I say to you when you come back?”
As Kalmen was tearing up and yelling at the furniture, the Inquisitor snorted.
“There is no one hiding. He goes to the next house.”
After the group of Inquisitors stampeded out.
Calmen, who had been standing there for a while, watching what was going on outside, hastily pushed the table aside as soon as he thought it was safe enough. Grumble.
When the wooden planks on the floor were lifted, a small space that was used as a liquor store appeared.
Calmen pulled up the man who had been crumpled there, laid him down on the messed up bed, and wiped his face with a wet towel.
The man’s pulse and breathing were already too weak to be affected by the Inquisitor’s energy.
“Captain, please bear with me. “If you have patience, I will definitely make you a member of the National Assembly.”
He repeated the same sound as if he was talking to himself and massaged the man’s limbs, which had become as stiff as a piece of wood.
Time passed slowly, as if the few hours had been decades.
And when the moonless night became dark,
Calmen, who carefully lifted the man and carried him on his back, finally began escaping the slum.
At first, it seemed to be relatively smooth.
Kalmen, an imperial knight, was a fairly skilled Auror user, and was able to move lightly without any restrictions, even carrying an adult man on his back.
Calmen quickly escaped the slums, still keenly detecting the presence of guards and inquisitors wandering around.
However, when we entered the main road with a residential area, things changed.
The patrols had become much tighter than usual, and there was no place to hide in the open streets.
“Hey, wait there!”
Eventually, a patrol team from the capital guard spots Calmen and calls him over.
He stopped in his seat, pretending to be relaxed, hiding his inner nervousness.
“yes. “Why are you doing this?”
“Where are you going in such a hurry at this late hour? “What is that person carrying on his back?”
“Ah, this is my uncle. “I don’t know how much you had to drink last night, but you haven’t sobered up at all, so I’m taking you home.”
Calmen answered, praying that the high-quality liquor he had drenched on his clothes would be worth the price.
“okay? But why are you covering your face like this? “Do you have a rash or something on your body?”
The guard approached, holding a torch above the man’s head.
At that moment, Calmen realized.
‘These guys are the ones influenced by the Heresy Tribunal. ‘I can’t just get over it!’
The decision was quick.
While the guards were sighing, Kalmen leapt forward with an aura wrapped around his lower body.
“Oh! You, you bastard! “Can’t you stand there?”
Beep.
A sharp whistle sounded, and all the capital guards in the area began to chase him.
“Heo-eok, heo-eok, heo-eok.”
I’m out of breath.
Running all over the alley, Kalmen tried to elude the guards as much as possible. However, it is not enough to avoid all the people chasing after them from all directions by narrowing the siege.
The escape did not last very long. In the end, Kalmen was blocked by several guards, including two armed knights, at a dead end and was stranded.
“Huh, huh. You bastard! “You’re putting people through trouble for no reason!”
Kalmen shouted, glaring at the guards.
“I am a knight of the Imperial Palace Guard! What do you think will happen if this fact becomes known to His Majesty? “Do you think it’s okay to randomly arrest innocent subjects of the imperial capital like this?”
“Imperial Guard?”
The capital guards who were about to rush towards him started whispering in surprise at the unexpected identity revealed by Kalmen.
I couldn’t believe it, but the energy the young man was giving off was too much to conclude that it was an impersonation.
“… “Then why is this guy who knows everything making things a hassle for no reason?”
“I am not an innocent subject. All those who have been cursed by the devil must be arrested or disposed of by today. “This is an official order from above.”
“It’s shameful that you ran away on your own, but if you just hand over the cursed person, I’ll let you go.”
Kalmen gritted his teeth.
I realized that the order came from a fairly high level and that the capital guards prioritized the order to secure patients above all else.
If you can’t arrest them, deal with them.
Wouldn’t it have been better to hand the leader over to the Heresy Tribunal and then report him to the imperial palace to try to rescue him?
No, no one would ever come out alive if they went in there anyway. How much more so when he is all dying like this… … .
He slowly lowered the man on his back to the ground, looked ahead, and grabbed the sword at his waist.
Two armed knights and five guards.
I wonder if it would be possible with his strength, but there is no way to break through without force, even if it is by force.
The only reason Kalmen couldn’t draw his sword even then was because he instinctively felt that if he really shed blood against the capital guards, any glimmer of hope he had left would be destroyed.
And at that very moment.
Kalmen saw one of the guards in the rear aiming a crossbow at the man.
Without any more time to think about this or that, he launched himself at the man.
Wedge! widely!
The stray bolt hits the floor and bounces off.
“Ugh, you bastard!”
“hey! You must not kill the imperial knight! First, get rid of this guy!”
In an instant, the hands of the guards rush in and violently grab him and tear him apart. However, Kalmen clung to the man tenaciously, biting off every hand he could see.
He didn’t know how long he was doing that, but soon kicks started raining down on his head.
“Hey! Get out of the way! “Get out of the way!”
“What difference does holding on like this make?”
“Are you going to die with that cursed bastard?”
puck! Pow! puck!
Amidst the mind-numbing violence, Kalmen wrapped his arms around the man and crouched down as best as he could.
An indescribable moan comes out between clenched teeth.
Please someone!
Please, someone, even the leader, can do something!
And to his ears.
“Hey, stop there for a second.”
Even though it was soft, I heard a young voice that strangely pierced my ears.
“Aren’t you the capital guards? Why are groups assaulting people on the street? “If there is no justifiable reason, you will have to be prepared to be disciplined.”
“… … ?”
“… “What is this guy again?”
The guards stopped beating and looked towards the direction from which the sound was heard.
There stood a boy wearing a large cloak loosely wrapped around him.
On top of an old cloak that clearly belonged to the Knights Templar, his well-maintained light blonde hair glowed yellow under the torchlight.
The boy with a slightly fierce look was clearly a face Kalmen knew well.
‘… Mores… ‘Prince?’
Why is that person here?
The prince also seemed to recognize Calmen’s face, widened his eyes and asked.
“Why is the guy that Sir Claudia was looking for so desperately getting beaten up in a place like this at night?”
“… … .”
“Ah, is that why you brought me here?”
“What is this little guy again? What nonsense are you talking about? “Can’t you just turn it off?”
One of the guards shouted, but the prince didn’t even blink.
“You guys are the ones who will be destroyed. No, will it be in trouble if I turn it off now? “If it was unreasonable violence, you guys should get the same amount of punishment here.”
“… what?”
The guards’ faces became grim.
“Hey, kid. When you have good words to say, quickly apologize for your mistakes and disappear! “Unless you want to suffer the sting of interfering with official duties.”
Maybe I wasn’t that wary of him looking so young? Two of the guards surrounding Calmen approached the prince in a threatening manner, putting their hands on their waists.
Then Prince Mores secretly raises one corner of his mouth.
Strangely, it was arsenic that made people who saw it angry.
“Was that official business just now? really? Why do I look like a bunch of thugs who run around in groups and extort people?”
“Ugh! “This guy really!”
Sreung.
In the end, one of the guards who was closest to the prince could not control his anger and reached for his sword.
Kalmen almost screamed without even realizing it.
You idiots, that’s the prince! Don’t pull it out!
I committed this without knowing what to do. What kind of trouble will I face later?
If I hadn’t been coughing constantly due to the fact that I couldn’t breathe and was hit, and the blood was flowing into my airways, I would have definitely cried out like that.
Prince Mores also looked at the half-drawn sword and scratched his cheek with a strange expression.
“Hmm, I don’t think you’ll really believe me if I tell you who I am right now. But let me give you a warning first. “If you pull out that sword, you will definitely regret it.”
fantasy,
