Chapter 21
That day, I was a little excited from the moment I woke up.
A monster hunt!
As long as you're in the Knights, monster hunts are unavoidable.
So, no matter which order you're assigned to, it's a rule that in your first year, you must accompany them on a monster hunt.
Today, Fabian and I would be joining the Sixth Knight Order, which specialized in hunting monsters.
Even though we'd been training with swords every day, we were still rookies in our first year, with no real combat experience.
Our main purpose today was to watch the senior knights and learn how they handled themselves; unless something truly unexpected happened, we weren't supposed to join the fighting.
Five platoons of twenty knights each were participating, and Fabian and I would accompany the Third Platoon.
The location was Starfall Forest, north of the royal capital, about an hour away on horseback.
As I rode at the very back of the Third Platoon, I couldn't hold back my nostalgic feelings.
The streets had changed over the past three hundred years, but the forest hadn't.
Starfall Forest was the closest forest to the royal capital, so I'd sometimes visited it in my previous life.
Once we reached the forest entrance, we split into platoons and received instructions from our platoon leader.
At that point, each of us was given a small bottle containing a sparkling liquid. It was a healing potion.
The assignments were: ten knights to fight monsters, five to guard the Saints, two to scout, and three to patrol the surroundings. Fabian and I were assigned to patrol.
That's right, the Saints were accompanying us today.
In a way, the Saints were my colleagues.
Since I hadn't met a Saint in this life yet, I'd been looking forward to meeting them.
But even after preparations were complete and the briefing was over, when it was finally time to start the hunt, I couldn't see any Saints.
In fact, all the knights were standing in formation as if waiting for something.
...Um. Does that mean we're waiting for the Saints?
After waiting another thirty minutes or so, five carriages arrived at the forest entrance.
Then fifteen women in white robes emerged from the carriages.
Guy, the deputy commander and highest-ranking officer among the assembled knights, hurried to greet the women.
The rest of the knights made fists with their right hands, pressed them to their left shoulders, and bowed their heads as soon as they saw the women. It was the knight's salute.
I hurriedly followed their example.
"Welcome, Saint-samas. I am Guy, deputy commander of the Sixth Knight Order. We look forward to working with you today."
The Saints nodded graciously and slowly walked ahead of Guy.
Then, three Saints were assigned to each platoon.
The three assigned to the Third Platoon seemed to be in their twenties, thirties, and forties, respectively.
Apparently, they generally didn't tell people their names, and everyone addressed them simply as "Saint-sama."
However, the ten Saints with the greatest abilities were ranked in order of ability—Saint No. 1, Saint No. 2, Saint No. 3, and so on—and their names were publicly known.
"Well then, Saint-samas, would you please accompany us?"
Hector, the Third Platoon's leader, asked the Saints if they were ready to proceed.
All three Saints wore white robes that reached below their knees and lace-up boots, and each held a staff set with a magic stone.
Without saying a word, they nodded and handed their staffs to nearby knights.
...Um, does that mean they trust the knights enough to entrust them with their precious staffs? Or are they heavy, so they want us to carry them instead?
Those two possibilities crossed my mind, but when I saw the Saints not even making eye contact with the knights or speaking a single word to them, I was sure.
...Yeah, it was the latter. They were heavy, so it was more like, "Carry these for me."
After that, each platoon split off and entered the forest, but the knights assigned to guard the Saints seemed to have a hard time of it.
Since we were in a forest, the trees' branches and leaves had grown wherever they pleased.
To keep them from touching the Saints' faces or hands, the guards hacked away the branches and leaves with hatchets. Every branch and leaf in the Saints' path!
And the Saints walked along the path they'd made as if it were only natural.
Ah—yeah. Three hundred years have passed, so I understand that values change.
I'm not going to say something childish like, "You have to stay the same forever."
But...
"It's here!"
The knights walking at the front shouted. It seemed they'd encountered a monster.
The creature that appeared was a Violet Boar, a boar-like monster nearly two meters long and extremely aggressive. It was tossing its snout and baring its tusks.
But these were active knights, after all.
In an instant, they formed a ring around the Violet Boar, naturally dividing into those who would act as bait and those who would attack, and struck the monster with precision.
The knights gradually cornered the Violet Boar, but then something strange happened.
The Saints slowly walked away from the battlefield.
Then they sat down on a rocky outcrop a short distance away.
...Huh?
As I watched in surprise, the Saints stayed seated and started chatting among themselves.
They were looking at one another and laughing, so their attention seemed to be elsewhere, far from the battle.
Five knights stood around the three of them, continuing to guard the Saints.
...Um, what should I do? This is starting to make no sense.
Aren't Saints supposed to take part in the battle and heal any injured knights right there on the spot?
Am I getting something wrong??
While I stared blankly at the Saints, unable to make sense of it, the battle ended.
One injured knight stepped forward in front of the Saints.
Then all three Saints held their hands over his wound and murmured something that sounded like a spell. ...They kept their hands there for about thirty seconds, and the injured area began to glow faintly white.
When the Saints moved their hands away, the wound inflicted by the monster's tusk had healed.
...Um. That knight had indeed been injured on the arm by the monster's tusk.
It looked like he'd been gored, and the tusk had pierced straight through his arm.
...But that was an extremely minor injury, wasn't it? He didn't need a spell for that. Actually, it was the kind of thing that could be healed in an instant.
W-whaaaaaaaaaat?!
I'd heard the Saints had grown weaker, but this much?!