Paladin of a Fallen Order (Novel) - Chapter 40 - Liar (Part 1)

Chapter 40 – Liar (Part 1)

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Translated by Pratt

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Since there was no immediate urgent matter, Elbridge decided to go to the central continent along with Rombel.

And Elbridge going to the central continent meant that Marcus also had to follow to the central continent.

“I have never followed another person around in my whole life, but following Sir Elbridge around, I feel like I’ve become goldfish poop.”

When Marcus grumbled for no reason, Rombel chuckled.

“Marcus. It’s not just a feeling; it’s true that you’ve really become goldfish poop.”

“…”

“Why make such an expression? If there’s a more appropriate expression, speak it.”

“…It’s nothing.”

However, a small problem arose for the three.

They only knew which direction the central continent was, and there was no one who knew the path to the central continent or the locations of towns to pass through.

Actually, it was a matter of course that Marcus and Elbridge did not know the way.

Because Marcus had only active in the eastern continent all his life, and Elbridge had no external activity for two hundred years.

Rombel, who said he had visited the central continent directly, should naturally guide the way, but unfortunately, Rombel had a poor sense of direction.

However, far from feeling sorry, Rombel became even more confident.

“I’m not the only one who can’t find the way. This vicinity has few towns or cities, so it’s originally hard to find the way. If you’re not a local, it’s probably the same for everyone, right?”

“…”

While walking blindly toward the direction of the central continent like that, Elbridge discovered wheel tracks.

“Let’s follow those wheel tracks.”

“Do you know where the cart is going?”

“They wouldn’t pull a cart and go to a cliff, would they? Eventually a town or city will appear. Let’s ask the people of that town for directions.”

The three walked along the wheel tracks.

Fortunately, since it did not rain, the disaster of the wheel tracks disappearing midway did not occur.

Since a man’s reticence is bound to disappear in front of people he is friendly with, the three chatted noisily using all kinds of stories as topics.

“By the way, Sir Elbridge, are you saying you will go all the way to the central continent because you want to know the news of that shield’s owner?”

“Because he is a special person.”

“Indeed, since he took the Chief Paladin seat past Sir Elbridge, and eventually became a heavenly god, he must have been a tremendous person.”

“His skill is his skill, but our connection is deep in another direction. If I had not met Sir Leonhardt, far from becoming a paladin, I might have died in the distant past.”

“Come to think of it, I have barely heard Sir Elbridge’s old stories. How did you end up becoming a paladin?”

At Marcus’s question, Elbridge gave a vague answer.

“There’s not much of a past to speak of. I just became a paladin somehow. How did Mr. Marcus end up becoming a mercenary?”

Neither Marcus nor Rombel asked further. Because the two had at least that much tact.

“If Sir Elbridge became a paladin thanks to Sir Leonhardt, I became a mercenary thanks to my father.”

“Was your father also a mercenary?”

“Not that, he was just a drunkard. Even while always tipsy, his skill in wielding a leather belt was not pushed back by a top-class mercenary. All he said was to bring alcohol… In the end, I kicked my way out of the corner of the house and ran out to become a mercenary.”

“Oh dear.”

“It wasn’t entirely bad. Because if not for the practice of dodging the leather belt, I would have died while doing mercenary work. The hero story of the warrior Marcus, who put his hands on the famous sword of the dwarves, began from dodging the leather belt.”

In times like this, one must laugh for him rather than console him.

Elbridge and Rombel chuckled and laughed.

Whether the reaction of the two was satisfying, Marcus pointed to the scar on the bridge of his nose.

“It’s not a joke. On the day this scar was made on my nose, my father’s leather belt came to mind, and I’m telling you I was able to dodge the attack. If not for that experience, my face would have been split in two…”

The excited Marcus laid out jokes that were half truth and half bluff, then suddenly stopped his steps and looked somewhere.

Elbridge’s and Rombel’s gazes followed Marcus’s gaze.

A quite large town was visible at the end of the wheel tracks.

Marcus stretched and said,

“I will tell you the rest of the story later. Let’s enter first.”

*

What Elbridge’s party felt upon arriving at the town was that the town was somehow different from an ordinary town.

“The people do not look at us with suspicion.”

“Indeed.”

Unless it was a large city where one always had to encounter strangers, ordinary townspeople were naturally bound to keep their distance from outsiders.

However, the people of this town did not look at Elbridge’s party with suspicion. It was so even though Elbridge and Marcus possessed swords, and Rombel possessed a large axe.

Are they familiar with it because the traffic of outsiders is frequent?

There was no way that was it. Because there was no inn in this town.

Even a building that could double as an inn was not visible. It was so despite being a quite large town where at least a thousand people seemed to live.

“Even a town half this size has at least one inn. Just what is this town…”

The three walked looking around to find a place to stay.

When a brief moment passed like that, a man who seemed to be in his mid-to-late fifties appeared leaning on a staff and asked,

“By any chance, where did you come from?”

“We came from Solenion. We went to the south to tend to some business and got lost, so we followed the wheel tracks.”

“Wheel tracks. Heavenly luck followed you.”

“Heavenly luck?”

“Because it is not common for a cart from this town to travel such a long distance. Moreover, to think that the wheel tracks are still not erased… At that level, it is definitely heavenly luck.”

“Is that so.”

The man said with a gentle smile,

“I am the chief of this town, Thibault. By any chance, is there a knight among you?”

Town Chief Thibault’s gaze was fixed on Marcus, not Elbridge.

Marcus’s sword, received as a gift from the dwarf town, was not an item that an ordinary mercenary would carry around by any standard.

Marcus puffed out his chest and said,

“I am a mercenary. A pretty decent mercenary, Marcus. This Sir Elbridge here is a paladin, and that Mr. Rombel over there is an outstanding warrior.”

“Luck upon luck has overlapped. Oh my, to think that such a thing would happen in life.”

Luck. It surely meant that there was a matter requiring the help of a knight or mercenary.

Just as Marcus was about to ask what the matter was, Elbridge spoke up first.

“Chief, you are a mage.”

Chief Thibault had a slightly surprised air.

“Indeed. How did you know?”

“One can know by looking at the shape of the staff.”

Unlike an ordinary cane, Chief Thibault’s staff was not an item made by carving wood.

Chief Thibault’s staff was naturally intertwined with several vines without any trace of artificial carving or cutting.

Because this was a structure to avoid hindering the flow of absorbed mana, it was a typical mage’s staff.

“Your eye for detail is outstanding.”

“For what reason is a mage staying in such a remote town?”

“Well, there is a bit of a story. It becomes long to talk about…”

At that time, a few little girls ran over giggling.

One of the girls grabbed Chief Thibault’s leg and pointed her finger at the boys far away.

“Archbishop! He, Osric, keeps teasing us with a frog!”

The chief let out a hearty laugh.

“Osric. Let the frog go. You must not play jokes with a living animal.”

“But it’s a frog I caught after a long time!”

Thibault smiled and waved his staff.

Then, a transparent frog made of water droplets appeared in the air and hopped straight into the hand of the child called Osric.

“Wow!”

After releasing the frog they were holding, the boys held the magic-created frog and began to chase the girls again.

Elbridge’s expression turned serious.

To gauge a mage’s skill, there is no need to unfold a powerful magic by all means.

Rather, the elaborateness of the magic, and how much effort they must devote to unfold that magic, shows the mage’s skill even more clearly.

And in Elbridge’s eyes, Chief Thibault was not an awkward novice mage.

He was a skilled person who could occupy an important post even in an ordinary mage tower.

However, there was something even stranger separately. It was precisely the title the little girl called Chief Thibault.

“Chief. Didn’t that child just call you Archbishop?”

“Indeed.”

Mages do not follow gods.

Some mages turn their backs on gods and enter a mage tower to live a life out of the gods’ influence, and some mages walk the path of magic to become a god themselves.

However, not all mages turned their backs on gods.

Because even in the distant past, there were mages who followed gods.

However, this was the first time Elbridge had heard a story that a mage concurrently held the post of archbishop.

If he is an archbishop, isn’t he virtually the number one person in the religious order?

When Elbridge’s party stared blankly, Chief Thibault made an embarrassed expression and shifted the topic.

“Since there would be no proper place to stay… how about staying at my house for the time being?”

*

The three followed to Chief Thibault’s house.

Religious symbols were placed here and there in the house, and the pattern of those symbols was something Elbridge was seeing for the first time.

Elbridge asked carefully,

“By any chance, Mr. Thibault, which god do you follow? Because my knowledge is narrow…”

“I serve the God of the Eternal Voyage.”

It was a god whose name, let alone pattern, was heard for the first time.

At that moment, the Goddess of the Rusty Shield sent down an oracle.

No, it was a bit subtle to call it an oracle. Because it was a snort containing laughter.

—Hmph.

However, in that snort, more meaning was implied than an ordinary oracle.

They say that because people of the world always look only at higher places, they cannot be satisfied or become happy even while possessing many things, was it?

However, the Goddess of the Rusty Shield also knew how to look at lower places.

In other words, it meant that she was ready to brag a little against a god who had fewer seats than herself.

—A name heard for the first time. Surely a petty god who has never occupied even a single seat since ascension. With a small and cute size of influence, incomparable to a certain Goddess who is scheduled to have at least one seat at the end of the year…

Since the Goddess of the Rusty Shield merely wished to boast and did not seem to wish for an answer, Elbridge committed the impiety of letting the Goddess’s oracle enter one ear and flow out the other.

This time, Chief Thibault asked Elbridge,

“You said you are Sir Elbridge, right. Which order’s paladin is Sir Elbridge?”

“The Order of the Rusty Shield.”

Elbridge was slightly tense. Because if an answer that it was the first time hearing the name Rusty Shield returned, the Goddess would definitely feel heartbroken.

However, Thibault was a person of even broader knowledge than Elbridge’s thoughts.

“The Order of the Rusty Shield. I have heard of it. It was the order said to have active most courageously in the past war against the devil.”

Now, the Goddess’s self-esteem was about to pierce the sky.

—To think that we shook our name this widely even in a situation where we barely have one or two seats in front of our eyes, it is hard to even imagine what will happen next year and the year after. What a Goddess I am, a fearsome Goddess…!

Elbridge, letting the Goddess’s oracle flow out the other ear this time too, asked,

“Although I have not met many mages until now, this is the first time I have seen a mage holding the post of archbishop concurrently.”

“I train in magic since childhood, then opened my eyes to faith about twenty years ago. They say no one knows how life will flow… I was exactly like that.”

Since it was an ordinary answer, there was nothing to press further about.

Chief Thibault examined Elbridge’s reaction, then brought up the main topic.

“By the way, everyone. If it wouldn’t be rude… could you give help to this town?”

He had known such a story would come out ever since the chief muttered about luck upon hearing the party’s composition.

“I think hearing what kind of help is needed is the priority.”

“Just listening is something to be grateful for. Everything goes back to half a year ago. Roughly around that time, suddenly the appearance of magic beasts became frequent…”

Elbridge flinched. Because this was bound to be related to the release of the seal on Elbridge and the Great Demon.

“Although my skill is poor, since I am also a mage, I was able to block a few magic beasts. However, not long ago, a magic beast that is hard for me to handle appeared.”

According to Chief Thibault’s words, he said there was a stream near the town.

The problem was that a giant plant-type magic beast appeared along that stream.

“…Isn’t it common sense to suppress a plant-type magic beast with fire magic? Naturally, I burned it with fire magic and was relieved… but looking at it the next day, it had become completely fine.”

“It is because of the roots.”

At Elbridge’s answer, Chief Thibault was filled with admiration.

“You are precise. Because the magic beast’s roots spread too deeply, there was no way to remove them with fire magic.”

Rombel cut in and asked,

“Can’t you just burn it all down to the roots?”

“The problem is that a stream is right next to it. Since it is a fellow that has sucked in a lot of stream water, it does not burn well either. It’s not like we can pull out the roots one by one, either…”

“If it’s hard to remove, how about just leaving it alone? If it is a plant-type magic beast, there wouldn’t be a need to remove it urgently.”

“That is troublesome. Because as the magic beast sucked in the stream water, the flow rate of the stream water decreased a lot. If the stream dries up at this rate, our town cannot endure.”

Chief Thibault’s expression turned gloomy.

Looking at it, he had an air of having no confidence that Elbridge’s party could solve the problem. He merely requested help with the feeling of grasping at straws.

However, fortunately, Elbridge knew how to handle such plant-type magic beasts.

At the moment he was about to accept Chief Thibault’s request, Elbridge felt a gaze.

It was Marcus. Marcus was examining Elbridge’s expression.

As if telling him to wait quietly, Marcus wagged his index finger left and right.

And Marcus opened his mouth on behalf of Elbridge.

“If we handle that magic beast, what will you give us in return?”