The Death Knight Became an Escort Knight for the Saintess

4. Being alive, dying every day

4.

Mt. Ethelbeyer is famous for its thick fog that only occurs during the day and the caves that are spread out in many places. Why is it widely known that Mt. The answer to your question is simple.

Because there were pioneers and idiots who did the climbing. The pioneers who carefully continued their exploration despite the fog, and the idiots who died while wandering around excitedly despite the fog, and informed the danger of the cave with their whole body.

And their efforts were finally able to bear fruit. It is to reach the summit, which is the common goal of climbers. And Mount Ethelbeyer was able to gain the popularity it has now through this. Because the top shows that there is no fog at all.

The fact that the only place where there is no fog is the top gave me a rather bizarre feeling. If it is a normal alpine mountain, it is rather foggy at the top. Because of this, normally it would be difficult to see the bottom because of the fog at the top, but it was an experience I had never had before.

It wasn’t very helpful in securing specific terrain information, but at least it certainly helped in getting directions. Zerpied recited a place he knew while checking the direction through the sun, which now fully revealed itself.

“I don’t know where the General Church is specifically, but the closest area to the north is Winter Spire, to the south is Lake Svern, to the west is Mount Sengreffen, and to the east is the Elahdem River. If you are going to move, it is better to choose one of these four places.”

As he gestured toward each direction, Zerfied continued his explanation.

“The most recommended direction is the river Elahdem or Lake Svern. No matter how close the Winter Spire is, it belongs to the axis that is farther than other places, and the risk is high because it is adjacent to the area where demons live. I know that there are several large cities beyond Mount Sengreffen, but it is not so easy to cross one mountain. Sengrefen Mountain is incomparably higher than Mount Ethelbeyer.

So, I have to choose between Lake Svern and River Elahdem. Both of them are along the water source, so there is a means to move to other areas, and when there is a water source, several settlements are naturally created nearby, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to plan your next plan there.”

“…… Where?”

“Lake Svern and the river Elahdem.”

As Zer Pied made eye contact with the saintess with her big eyes wide open, he wondered if he had said something wrong this time too. He had to make up for his mistakes again. I’m not used to it because I’ve never used it.

“Lady.”

The saintess barely held back her laughter, which almost erupted at his serious words, and let out a sigh and shook her head.

“No, no. It’s not… I have no idea what you’re talking about…….”

“You mean you don’t know? Curious, Winter Spire is very famous. Are you saying you don’t know about that spire made entirely of ice?”

“I’m not saying that… There is no place in the north called Winter Spire.”

Zer Pied tilted his head slowly. What does this mean again? That there was no great spire, over a hundred cubits in length, and of equal length in circumference. It seemed that the saintess’ geographic knowledge was surprisingly shallow.

“If you get a chance later, try going. It’s a place worth seeing at least once. Since you don’t know Winter Spire, I plan to go somewhere else…….”

“No, that’s not what I meant! There is no such thing as a winter spire! There is no place called Lake Svern nor place called Elahdem River!”

“…… No?”

Zerpied only then began to feel a sense of incongruity. Does not exist. It’s not that I don’t know, it’s that I don’t.

“Juno San, Ebate, Keiter, Tsuhita, Nahamati.”

He quickly recited names he knew. As the names of places were listed, the speed at which the saintess shook her head grew stronger. Jer Peed said to her in her squeezing voice. Muttering his last memories.

“That can’t be. When I was with Blitod, all of these areas were properly maintained without being destroyed.”

At his words, Ecilia asked with a trembling voice.

“I…… Blitod the knight is talking about is a necromancer, right? ? The culprit who started that terrible war called the Great War of Life and Death…….”

The Death Knight nodded slowly. Does that mean you know Blitod but don’t know those names?

“The Battle of Life and Death happened 950 years ago… ….”

950 Years. Zerfied muttered the words to himself. Eight times. Did I say ’95 wrong? Or 150 years? Yeah, maybe I said 350 years wrong. His helmet moved with a screeching sound. If not, what the hell could I do to sleep for 950 years?

There is always a gap in waking up. The gap itself isn’t too surprising. But at the ridiculous length of the gap of 950 years, he just had to keep moving his head. 950 Years. He muttered inwardly once again.

The shortest gap so far was 97 years, and the longest gap was 303 years. Surely 303 years was the period it took to wake up after the contract with the dragon ended? On average, it took between 120 and 150 years to wake up after falling asleep.

In terms of average duration, it is about seven to eight times. Even at the longest gap, it is about three times more. The embarrassingly long number made it difficult for him to figure out what to think.

“I… I don’t know about Mt. Jurno…… I know the name Juno. But there… It’s not a mountain, it’s a plain…….”

After he kept silent, Esilia opened her mouth. She might have been better off not listening, he thought seriously. It’s not Mt. Jurno, it’s the Plain of Jurno. Is the place he thinks right? His voice began to crack even more.

“…… Where is the place called the Cjurno Plain?”

“Um…… If you go west from the demon’s territory….”

“… I see.”

He nodded his head. Damn it, he was right where he knew. The plains of Jurno, not Mt. The mountain that did not respond to the dragon’s flames or the witch’s magic, the mountain where the war was waged with Blitod, has now become a plain.

‘…… I definitely remember it as a place that has been there for well over a thousand years.’

“…… You said there’s no such thing as a winter spire, so is there anything like a spire there?”

Cilia shook her head. She sighed thickly between the gaps between the Death Knight’s helmet. After all, the frozen spire, which had lasted hundreds if not thousands of years, had now collapsed and crumbled into a powder of ice.

“…… Why didn’t you tell me?”

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Exhaling her words with her sigh, Zer Pied looked at Esilia. As an escort knight, it’s not something I would say to the lady – he had to sell out hard to use this word even secretly – but shouldn’t he know this important information in advance? At his question, Eccilia opened her mouth and asserted her own absurdity in proportion to the size of her mouth.

“Yes… ? I beg your pardon… ? Of course I didn’t know! I dig something when the knight wakes up! I thought you knew everything! Do you think it makes sense that the saintess knows about the Death Knight in the first place?”

Moreover, it’s not just a death knight, it’s a living death, Zerfied. It’s a shame because she was able to read forbidden books to some extent because she was a saint, but if the fact that she read all the forbidden books containing information about Zer Peed was discovered, she would have been branded as having impure thoughts.

Because those records all belonged to the highest ranking unsettled books. If you don’t know the information about the general undead, he is a Death Knight who has driven the world to destruction many times. No matter how hard she tried, she could only read about half of the books about him.

And with that reasonable objection, Zerfied had to agree. That’s right. Because she is a very adult herself, she cannot be confident that she knows perfectly about the clergy. If she had to blame it, it was her own fault for always thinking that when she woke up, nothing had changed in the past, so it would still be the case.

Renerna, the goddess of innocence, who was one of the seven highest-ranking gods who consecrated the Holy Knights when they fought against the Holy Knights with the Great Devil, and Mount Ethelvire, the core part of the magic circle she activated when she was with the Witch. , It was a big problem that I was complacent just because there were elements that were quite familiar to me. Especially since René Le has been directly confronted with her past.

Despairedly, the Death Knight only took actions that he thought were reasonable.

“…… First of all, tell me all the geographic information you know.”

–

“…… So, to the north there is a dense coniferous forest called Rephadam Forest, which serves as a boundary between the territory of the demons. If you go east from there, a famous area is the , Where most of the elves on this continent live… Knight? Are you okay?”

Esilia swallowed lightly at the sight of Zerpied, whose eyes reflected from the helmet were dimming.

Did I explain it too hard? It’s not, but this is enough to explain the characteristics.

“Not at all.”

Since it was in front of the saintess, she barely restrained herself from wanting to swear at her, and moved her gaze to the sky. She couldn’t figure out what was what. Place names I had never heard of came pouring in, and I tried to focus on the topography I barely knew, but even those topography changed to something else or disappeared altogether, making it difficult to even understand where it was except for a few topography.

Why do you mean the elves are in the east in the first place? Aren’t the original elves living in the south? Those who lived in the Southern Continent, not just the South, were they in the eastern part of the Central Continent?

In the place where the spire used to be, there was a forest before anyone knew it. With the winter spiers gone, the plants seemed to be able to take root.

‘If the witch knew, she’d get irritated again and try to lock herself in the experiments.’

She put a lot of effort into putting it up. He quickly swallowed her back thoughts into his consciousness, trying to organize the information he heard. She had to make another effort not to let a sigh come out of her mouth the wrong way. It’s not very nice to show yourself like this in front of a lady.

After hearing the explanation only in words, there was nothing that could be drawn properly in my head. Fortunately, the basic shape of the world itself had not changed. If you think about it, it would be rather absurd to change. Didn’t the shape of the world change even during the Holy Demon War that lasted for 3,000 years?

Escelia nodded her head weakly when she heard the Death Knight’s words that she wasn’t okay at all.

“I think we should go to the nearby town.”

“You mean the village?”

“Since I woke up the knight too, I can’t stay in Mount Ethelbayer all the time. I need to find a place to sleep. As far as I know, the nearest town from here is Charcot in the north.”

Listening to the saintess’ words, Zerpied thought it was a reasonable proposal. If it makes sense, acting quickly is the best option.

“Then I’ll move right now.”

“Huh? Right now?”

“Look up, the sun is overhead. There’s still quite a bit of time until evening, but this place is in the middle of the mountain. It will get dark soon.”

“That’s right, but… Let’s break through this fog? I know it’s been a while since I’ve been here, but it’s better to move at night than to go through the fog.”

“Don’t worry.”

Zer Pied once rolled his foot towards the ground. He was right in his own shadow. With a sound similar to Turejil, but lower and sharper, a form emerged from his shadow. Ecilia stared at the protruding eyes with different colored eyes. She couldn’t help but look. It was a familiar form, but it was a completely unfamiliar form.

That was a horse. Headless horse. A horse with an ultramarine blue body resembling his armor with a fluttering black mane stood in front of her. The horse, equally tall, had to be looked up at by the saintess, who was no more than three cubits tall.

I think it will be 3.6 Cubits no matter how hard it is. It’s about the same height as his Partizan. The size of a stallion rather than a riding horse. The horse stood still in front of her, with only its mane waving quietly.

“Uh… uh… ….”

“I will ride this.”

“This, this?”

Esilia’s eyebrows trembled. She had a hard time believing what was in front of her.

The rider of the headless horse. One of Zerfied’s nicknames. But she thought it was just a joke. I don’t know everything else, but I thought this was an exaggeration. Although Zerpied itself is close to a person who appears in a legend, there are clear factual records left behind. But didn’t this word come out of a fairy tale?

She remembered the story that Miss Belluch had told her when she was very young and when she did something wrong.

‘If you do something bad and don’t reflect on it, the Rider of the headless horse Will come and take you away.’

That night, the children from the nursery school sat together in bed and protected each other from the appearance of the rider of the headless horse. I smiled a little at the memory of my childhood and turned my gaze back to the giant horse. Looking back, it was an intimidating look.

“Uh, um… isn’t that nice? Go, can you stay still?”

“Even if I don’t have to do that, I will stay still and be nice. This is part of me.”

Ecilia dropped her gaze to the ground as she blushed. She was, in effect, muttering things like ‘Are you nice?’ And ‘Could you stay still?’ Ecilia said to the Death Knight as she was staring at the ground.

“… Driver, but I’ve never ridden a horse before.”

“I told you, a part of me. Just ride it and it will move on its own. Anyway, I move according to my will. Alright then – “

Zerpied slowly knelt in front of her. Get on her knees and lift her hands up. Like a staircase, an ultramarine platform was set up for her horse.

“Lady.”

Escelia feels quite odd, she shyly takes Jer Peyed’s hand and puts her foot on his lap. Because she was recreating the scene where she climbed a horse with the help of a knight that she had only seen in fairy tales, against a person close to the legend and a horse from a fairy tale.

Although the opponent was a death knight and a headless horse, it was difficult to completely suppress the excitement that slowly emerged. The feeling of riding a horse for the first time was fresh. Even though it seemed to be floating in the air, I could definitely feel the mass beneath it.

“The speed will be considerable, so hold on to your neck. Then let’s see it from under the mountain.”

“Yes? Where are you going?!”

“I’m not going anywhere, I’m just going to scout. Nothing has happened yet, but you never know. If anything happens, just call me. Because I can hear it through a part of me.”

After saying that, the Death Knight disappeared. And starting with that, the headless horse began to play with its legs.

Very vigorously, too vigorously. In an instant, the landscape passed by. Instead of running, the feeling of falling embraced my whole body. The summit, which had just been standing, faintly outlines itself in the midst of the distorted scenery that cannot overcome the high speed.

Esilia screamed at the speed as if she ran into the world and collided with it.

“Knight! Knight!! I’m a knight – !!!!”

As the headless horse stopped its movement without warning, her tiny body, which ran like crazy, had to deal with the feeling of even the internal organs being pulled.

“Lady Esilia, what are you doing?”

Zer Pied made her appearance as she let out her screams, with her movements unreasonable that she seemed to have sprang up beside her. The Death Knight immediately knew why her saint had called him. Because in the very next second she had to ‘see’ the answers pouring out of her mouth.

“Oops…… !”

–

“Uhweh… ! Heo-eok… ! Wow… !”

Celia leaned against the back of her tree, breathing heavily. Her little body stirred with each breath she took.

“…… Next time, I’ll have to do horseback riding only on flat ground.”

“Sorry… sorry…… No wonder, because of me… Whoops… !”

Looking at the vomit of clear gastric juice dripping from her mouth, Zerfied just patted her on the back.

“…… No. It was my fault for taking a novice and running it at full speed, and in the mountains. I shouldn’t have been moving at the speed I used to run without much thought.”

“Haa… ! Ha… !”

“Are you feeling better?”

Cilia nodded her head broadly, wiping the transparent saliva from her mouth with her hand. Jer Pied, who was patting her on the back, looked at her silently and picked her up. Her consciousness, which had been preoccupied with her nausea, immediately returned to her place.

“Eh… ?!”

“Stay still.”

In an instant, her body was placed back on the headless horse. As she landed on top of her horse, she began to walk the headless horse with unusual ease.

“Don’t descend at this speed. It will be better than before. Rather than walking in that state, sitting still like now will be more helpful.”

Just sitting still, as he said, did a lot more to calm her down. She didn’t have to do anything, as the headless horse did all the moving. She was close to not exactly. It was too much for her just to calm her reddened face after being hugged by a man for the first time.

“… ….”

After I calmed down a bit, what came to me was the silence of awkwardness. Ecilia looked around to dispel the awkwardness, but all she could see was the same fog. She cast a glance at the cause of the silence, the Death Knight. However, Jer Pied just walks silently next to her part of herself without much reaction from her.

Even after riding her horse, a slight groan came from time to time, and Zer Pied stopped even asking if she was okay and stuck to her silence. She seemed to have judged that it would have been her help in restoring her sanity that she had rather not spoken to her. His judgment was indeed appropriate, but the problem was that he remained silent even though his stomach had now calmed down. And it was hard for Celia to bear the feeling of loneliness that came to her. It’s been less than a day since they met.

Due to the sense of urgency to live, I blindly pushed him, and unexpectedly succeeded. After that, the saintess, who was buried in an urgent situation, was able to look at her current condition more objectively as the waves of her raging situation subsided. That she naturally didn’t know what to say.

The identity of the threatening enemy and the exploration of the terrain to find out the enemy’s location became a natural topic of conversation, but in the case of silence like now, nothing came to mind. However, I didn’t want this to happen again and again. We are supposed to be together from now on, but isn’t it troublesome if you keep feeling awkward?

She pursed her lips a few times. In her mouth, words that could not be changed into her voice were floating around. What do you like, knight? How cool is the knight’s armor? How did the knight become a death knight… Is the question just too sensitive?

A knight, a knight, a knight, a knight, a knight.

When the word knight, which kept repeating itself in my mouth, flowed out of my mouth without being able to overcome the repetition. It was after Zer Pied responded to her that her saintess realized that.

“What happened?”

“Ah… that… I….”

What should I say? Even to her own mind, she didn’t have the courage to ask about private things in less than a day since they met. She mumbled a few times before she let out a sigh. If she couldn’t ask for anything, there was only one thing she could do after all.

“…… Will you listen to me?”

–

“…… That’s how I read the story about the knight in the forbidden books and ran away with the money I had. If I hadn’t been a prankster, I probably wouldn’t have known about the hole in the outer wall that was hidden by the bushes. If you think about it now, being childish is lucky.

Ah, the driver may not know, but there were a lot of donations in my name. I think I ran away with about 90%. It was fortunate that most of them were pure gold with a small volume. If it had been any other kind of money, I would have never dreamed of running away with it.

Ha…… And since I couldn’t think of anything other than waking up the knight, I just headed here. Because this or that life is over anyway. I didn’t expect it to take half a year to get here… Ah… Sorry, was I too talkative?”

Somehow, she was the only one making noise. Is it because she has someone to listen to even if she doesn’t say anything? The story of her experiences flows endlessly. She couldn’t control herself when the opportunity came to tell someone about her long hardships that she had to go through alone. A little tear welled up in her eyes.

“No, that was a very interesting story.”

Death Knight shook her head quietly.

“A lie.”

Having said nothing up until now, she swallowed her afterwords into her stomach.

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“Why would you lie to a lady? The part about forbidden books was especially interesting. Could you tell me how she was describing me?”

At the words of the Death Knight, Esilia laughed and muttered in a small voice. That bastard lady. It seemed that Zerfied had gotten used to that title before he knew it.

“A contractor of all sorts of disturbing things.”

“That’s a forbidden book.”

The saintess let out a low laugh in agreement. In a way, she didn’t know if she should be grateful for the forbidden book. They were forbidden books that she wouldn’t normally look into, but through those forbidden books, she was able to capture the fact that this Death Knight was moving with her contract.

With that thought, she took a slow, deep breath and breathed in the fresh mountain air. She was curiously clear of her mind. She couldn’t be this comfortable when she took out all the things she had stored inside.

Jer Pied, who briefly looked at her saintess, asked her a question. In a voice full of doubts.

“But there is something I don’t understand.”

“What is it?”

“You said that you had been on this mountain for half a year, and that you had been in this mountain for some time before you got on the horse.”

“So what?”

“I can’t possibly see your condition that way.”

The Death Knight fixed her gaze on her saintess. The long, rich, pale blonde hair was shiny, and the skin was clean, as if it had never been stained. Anyone can see that the finest fabric shines as if it has just been wrung out. Even though she apparently spent last night lying in a cave.

“Ah.”

At the Death Knight’s point, the saintess looked at herself. At her reasonable point, she nodded her head.

“Because I am a saint. I have a Gaho. The blessing of ‘purity’. It always keeps me ‘pure’. It’s an indirect blessing, so it’s not very powerful. It’s clean even if you don’t wash it, and the same goes for clothes. And it was all thanks to this blessing that I managed to escape for half a year. Do you know what, driver?”

“…… What do you mean?”

“To be pure, that is, to be clean is the same as leaving little traces.”

Always kept pure and clean. Whether through dirty sewers, through grass, or down alleys, she is always clean. The opposite of her own behavior was enough to distract the eyes of her tracking party. At the inn she always stays in a rather unpleasant room.

“You couldn’t have imagined that someone the size of a saint would run away so messily.”

“Awesome. To think of using divine protection like that?”

Zerpied uttered Pure Astonishment. At his response, Escelia burst into a chuckle of her own.

“It’s not just the name that makes me a saint.”

“But doesn’t that mean she has the ability to make a saintess roam the sewers and alleyways? I think that’s great too.”

“Ah, before I became a saint, I grew up in an orphanage. I’m used to that. Although she was outside the capital. Well, this is the first time I’ve been out of the capital. Since she became a saint, she has always been in the cathedral because of her rituals, healing, and other things to do.”

She breathed in the fresh alpine air once more. She spoke to Jer Pied with a full sense of freshness.

“My story is over. Now it’s the knight’s turn. Would you like to tell me the story of the driver?”

“You mean me?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very good story for a lady to hear.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s just days of idyllic slaughter. From start to finish.”

Celia was speechless. He who spoke calmly was Zerpied Lim Sedbaigal, the Living Death. What period of time has he been through? Is he just an undead that only kills? It was impossible for her to fully understand him, as she had spent her ridiculous amount of time more than herself.

“…… Always always like that… Did you send… ?”

After quite a while, she was able to get her words out. Zer Pied shook his head.

“Not always. After the contract is over, spend your time looking around the world until you go dormant again. Seeing the mountains, smelling the sea, meeting eyes, and so on.”

“… Didn’t you go to sleep right after the contract ended?”

“If done well, it is possible to drive for several hundred years at the longest. The reason why I take part of life is because of this. It moves based on a part of the life it has received. The longest I’ve ever run was about 300 years.”

Ecilia is overjoyed that he has moved away from her violent subject, she asks him. It’s because he’s not just an undead for slaughter.

“Are you enjoying seeing the world?”

“It’s fun. And that’s all you can do. It’s hard to see that I’m already alive, but acting like that and remembering the time when I was alive is the only thing I can do.

So Lady Esilia. You do what you want to do See the world to your heart’s content and feel it to the fullest. That is the right of living things to enjoy.

Do not walk the earth, immerse yourself in water, or look at the sky until you are no longer alive like me. When you are alive, do what is natural for you to be alive.

Because living things are dying every day.”

A silence settled between them again. The Death Knight’s words were difficult for her to express easily. She was speechless at the words of someone who was not already alive. Because she was alive After another long time, in a tearing voice, she spoke her words.

“…… And what was the most beautiful and the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen?”

She With her own curiosity, and forced to divert her topic, she asked a question. As always, the Death Knight’s words were calm.

“The place where I met my current self.”

One answer to two questions. And at the content of the reply, Eccilia bowed her head and said no more. She couldn’t speak Death Knight talked to such a saint.

“The thing that moved me in the contract of blood, flesh, and life was the way to kill someone rather than protect someone. The contractors wanted me to die, and someone’s death was the complete opposite of living.

But now you’re talking about living. I am the undead who represents death in front of the saintess who also represents life.

…… Protecting someone doesn’t seem too bad.

Lady Esilia, we are all here.”

She raised her head and looked in front of her. Suddenly, the fog lifted from her. Instead of a landscape full of caves on Mount Ethelbayer, a flat dirt road caught my eye. Sunset scattered its own light to its heart’s content, not in the mountains, without being hindered by the fog. Scattered lights pierced her body and eyes sharply. The intensity made her squint her eyes.

Zerpied wriggled and stretched out his cloak, shaking off the glare from her body and eyes. Let’s shake off her group of lights, this time a faint shape caught at the end of the road came into the eyes of the Death Knight and the saintess.

It was Charcot.