Chapter 90
*
After parting ways with Felicia at the Hauzen marquis’s mansion.
I switched cars several times along the route my father-in-law had arranged.
And at the end, I got into the car Otto was driving.
Rustle.
As I changed into my anti-recognition mask and robe inside the car, I thought.
‘How much longer am I supposed to live like this….’
It was way too much trouble just to go to work once.
But it couldn’t be helped.
There were just too many people out to get me.
My master, too, apparently visited the Limbus Pit every time using just as cumbersome a method.
Still, that was because this was dark fantasy, I guess.
Even going to work in peace was hard.
“We’ve arrived at the firm, Director.”
The magnificent building visible outside the window welcomed us.
Right after the establishment of the Meyer Clinic had been finalized,
the guild master suddenly got the urge to build something and had a new building erected.
— “If you’re a first-rate guild, then of course! You need a building worthy of that reputation! Hahaha!”
As a result, the most lavish and grand guild building on the street was completed.
Beside the building,
Otto said as he stopped the car in the separately prepared parking lot.
“I’ll go fetch the paladins.”
“No, Otto. I’m stopping by the guild today to pick up medicine for the clinic, so I’ll get out too.”
“Understood.”
I headed toward the guild building with Otto in tow.
After passing through the revolving door and stepping into the first-floor lobby of Merkuer’s main building,
the cleaner who had been busily scrubbing the marble floor greeted us.
“Good morning, Director!”
“Good morning. How’s your back disc doing these days?”
“Much better after you treated it, Director.”
“Please don’t overdo it. We don’t want it flaring up again.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I exchanged greetings with the cleaners and staff as I headed toward a corner of the lobby.
Since I had called ahead saying I’d come to pick it up, they had already lined the medicines up along one side of the corridor.
“This is today’s quantity, Director. Two boxes of painkillers, three boxes of disinfectant, one box of insulin, and one box of vaccines.”
“Thank you for preparing everything so early. What about the receipt?”
“It’s already been filled out, Director. Just your signature, please.”
The quill pen slid across the receipt and finished the signature.
Otto stepped toward the medicine boxes to carry them.
“I’ll take these to the car fir—”
Before Otto could even finish speaking,
Bang!
Someone flung the reception room door open with gusto.
A mass of living muscle shoved through the gap in the door.
“I’ve been waiting, Saint!”
Bulging.
Muscles writhing as if they were making that very sound effect.
I quietly called out to the muscle-bound man.
“… Paladin?”
“That’s right!”
At his booming shout, the chandelier overhead shook.
The morning sunlight reflecting off his gleaming forehead made Otto frown.
Beneath the beard bristling under his chin,
the paladin uniform, on the verge of bursting, was screaming for mercy.
“Paladin Gregor Ardenu! Today as well, I rose at dawn to burn this body in service of the miraculous Saint!”
“….”
Gregor Ardenu.
A genius senior paladin who reached Fourth Tier at 24. (He looks like he’s in his late 30s, but he really is in his 20s.)
Honest and upright, accomplished in both scholarship and combat, and burly.
There were countless words that could describe him, but the Order’s most famous epithet was only one.
The Fallen Inquisitor.
He was a paladin who, because he was too kind-hearted, couldn’t bring himself to harm heretics even though he was an inquisitor.
As a result, despite his overwhelming genius, he was given the cold shoulder in the Order.
That he was appointed as my escort was entirely my choice.
When I chose him as my escort, the Order actually recommended other paladins instead.
— “Saint? There are more capable paladins, so why…?”
— “Still, I think I like this one better.”
But I chose Gregor as my escort.
Why?
Because I thought he’d be fun.
And because I thought I could trust him.
In a world like this, where betrayal and conspiracy ran rampant, what mattered wasn’t skill.
It was trust.
That was why I chose Gregor.
Because I thought that if it was a man like him, who couldn’t bear to hurt another person, he would never betray me no matter what happened.
“You’re looking as healthy as ever, muscle-wise. I look forward to working with you, Paladin.”
“Hrk! No matter how often I hear the Saint’s praise, my pectorals always tremble!”
The minor flaw was that he was a little too much to handle.
And that he was far too sensitive.
Still, aside from those minor flaws, he was an amusing man.
“As expected, I can’t hold it in anymore!”
At that moment.
He suddenly spread both arms wide.
Seeing the thick veins bulging in both arms, a sense of unease washed over me.
“My heart is swelling like a river overflowing its banks! Come, embrace this one’s chest! French hug!!”
A giant shadow came crashing down toward me.
I reflexively stepped one pace to the side.
A huge mass of muscle passed me by.
... The smell of baby formula tickled my nose.
Why on earth did this giant lump of muscle smell like baby formula?
“…? Guhk!”
The muscle man who had rushed past me then body-checked Otto, who was holding the medicine boxes.
Otto was crushed against Gregor’s broad chest.
After holding him tightly for a long while, Gregor finally realized something was off and looked down.
“… Hm?”
His gaze fell on Otto, buried in his pectorals.
He seemed to realize only belatedly that the one he had hugged wasn’t me.
But he didn’t care and instead felt over Otto’s upper arm muscles.
“Ooh…”
He let out a low exclamation.
“Oho… Otto’s muscles are firmer than they look. If you’ve got this much of a foundation, I could even teach you my sect’s method for training each muscle group separately—”
I stopped listening there and turned away from Gregor.
Leaving Gregor to paw all over Otto from behind,
I greeted the lower-ranking paladins who accompanied him.
“Hello, everyone. Thank you for your hard work this early in the morning.”
“We greet the Saint.”
“If it’s not too much trouble, could you help move these? I know it’s not your mission, but they’re too heavy for me to carry.”
“Not at all. You may order us as much as you like.”
“It’s not an order, just a request.”
“Understood.”
— “Oh?! The thickness of the latissimus dorsi...! When on earth did you train like this?!”
Leaving Gregor to feel up Otto from behind,
the lower-ranking paladins and I moved the medicine boxes to the car.
It was another peaceful morning, no different from usual.
*
The car carrying medicine boxes, paladins, and one giant lump of muscle set off.
As I admired the scenery flowing past the car window,
Gregor’s voice came from the passenger seat.
“Saint.”
“Yes?”
“Last night—”
Gregor turned around in the passenger seat.
Boing.
Along with that sound effect, his tightly curled beard made its presence known.
“Saint, while you were on your way home, my subordinates spotted some suspicious movement.”
“That makes five times already this month.”
“Don’t worry.”
He said, thumping his pectorals.
“We apprehended them before dawn broke.”
“Who were they?”
“Well….”
His beard lost a bit of its vigor and drooped.
“They killed themselves the moment they were caught, so we couldn’t find out. They may have already been undead.”
“… You must have had a rough time. Are you okay?”
I offered comfort to the soft-hearted (?) paladin who couldn’t stand the sight of corpses.
The paladin shook his head with a somber expression.
“I’m fine. You’re very kind, Saint.”
He slapped his own cheek with a sharp smack.
“Anyway! It seems the black mages keep targeting you, Saint. I don’t have proof, but that’s the feeling I get. From now on, you should be even more careful on your way to work. At least until you enter the academy.”
“Understood.”
Black mages were such a nuisance.
It would be nice if there were things like mana tracking in a normal fantasy story.
But in this dark world setting, there was no such thing,
so mana was just mana, and if you wanted to track magic, you ultimately had to follow the traces.
That meant the less well-known a piece of black magic was, the more endlessly you could keep trying like this.
‘The people who were chasing me just now were probably undead too.’
It wasn’t for nothing that plenty of nobles in this setting went around hiding their identities.
When I stayed quiet for a while, Gregor spoke to me.
“Don’t worry. I’ll stake every last muscle I have on making sure those guys can’t lay a finger on the Saint.”
“That’s reassuring, Gregor.”
“Hmph…!”
The paladin snorted, radiating confidence.
I realized that was his way of looking out for me, and let out a wry smile beneath my crow mask.
By the time our conversation was over, the car was already heading toward the Limbus Pit.
The scenery outside the window was just as usual.
A procession of people being expelled to the Limbus Pit stretched out toward it.
But today there was one difference from usual.
In front of the tin gate marking the boundary between Limbus Pit and Civitas Square,
the overpass that should have been over the road leading there was lying on the ground instead of overhead.
The overpass had collapsed right in the middle of the street.
Huge chunks of steel had come crashing down, completely blocking the road to the center.
People had gathered in front of the collapsed slabs of iron.
— “Help! There’s someone here!”
— “Back off!”
— “I’m telling you, there’s someone here!”
— “I know that, so back off!”
An arm protruded through the fallen guardrail.
Someone was trapped beneath the steel plates, shouting for help from out of sight.
But the guards were busy controlling the onlookers, not helping with the rescue.
— “It’s a black mage attack! Everyone stay alert!”
a guard shouted.
Only then could I understand the guards’ reaction.
If a black mage attacked during the rescue,
the guards had no choice but to be reluctant about rescue operations.
Gregor and Otto, who had been looking at the overpass, both wore grim expressions.
“Otto.”
“… Are you going to go rescue them?”
“I don’t think I can go against my nature.”
“I’ll let the clinic know we’ll be late.”
Instead of taking another route, Otto turned the car toward the overpass.
I had already reached for the car door handle.
That was when,
“Stooop!”
Gregor shouted from the passenger seat.
“Saint.”
The paladin spoke in a low voice.
“By my intuition, this is highly likely to be a trap.”
“I know.”
“By escort protocol, I should normally not allow this rescue for your safety.”
“But you won’t do that, will you?”
Gregor nodded.
“I’ve already been cast aside for breaking the Inquisition Office’s rules. There was a time I regretted putting conviction before rules, but you accepted me as I was, Saint.”
Crack, crack.
He slowly unclenched his fists.
“On the path you walk, Saint! Even if it’s a bed of thorns, I’ll step on it first; even if it’s a poisoned cup, I’ll drink it first! That is my duty and my glory!”
Hup!
With a cry, Gregor ripped the door off and leapt from the car.
Using the torn-off door as an improvised shield, he said,
“I’ll lead the way!”
“… This is already the third time. I’m billing the Order for the car repairs.”
“Sniffle.”
His beard drooped.
He could already see the Order docking his pay.
*
I headed toward the overpass with Gregor leading the way.
Beneath the wreckage made of chunks of concrete and steel plates, I saw a twitching hand.
I took the pulse.
Thankfully, there was a pulse.
“Make way...”
“Wait. This person is...!”
The guards tried to stop me, but once I revealed I was the Saint, they stepped aside without another word.
I began clearing away the rubble with the lower-ranking paladins.
As we removed the debris, the person beneath it gradually came into view.
He was a man in his thirties.
His face was ashen, and his lips had nearly lost all color.
The concrete chunks covered almost everything below his hips, and only one arm and the upper part of his chest were exposed from the rubble.
The hair scattered beside his face trembled faintly, coated in soot.
“... Please, save me.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll definitely save you.”
I said, gripping the man’s hand, which was covered in dust and blood.
“But could you tell me how it suddenly collapsed?”
“It was... I was crossing the overpass at dawn when suddenly...”
His voice was too faint to hear clearly.
Beyond the mouth of the alley, the sound of people gathering had begun.
The murmuring of passersby, craning their necks to peer over the collapsed overpass.
“Make way!”
“Back off! Do you think this is a show?”
The shouts of the guards controlling them.
The hurried footsteps of the subordinate paladins as they kicked broken pieces of concrete aside with their toes.
In the midst of all that noise, as if a single thread suddenly cut through it,
Clop, clop—
the clear sound of horse hooves came from deep within the alley.
Before I had even let go of the patient’s wrist, a carriage drawn by four horses was charging madly toward us from the narrow alley entrance.
The horses, frothing at the mouth with only the whites of their eyes showing.
“It’s an attack!”
The guards immediately thrust out their spears, but even after being pierced, the horses’ speed didn’t slow.
They even broke the spear shafts stuck in them and kept charging forward.
It was obvious who those horses were targeting.
“Gregor.”
“Un—derstood!”
Thud.
A button popped off.
“How could I let vile wretches dare to disturb this sacred moment?!”
Gregor tore open the top of his paladin uniform and charged at the carriage.
Muscles infused with holy power shimmered with a brilliant glow as they proclaimed their presence.
“Open your eyes wide and look carefully, you vile wretches! The beautiful sacred martial art of the Ardenu sect!!”
Holding the torn-off car door instead of a shield, Gregor charged at the mad carriage like a rugby player.
Before long, the shining mass of muscle collided with the four frenzied horses.
Crash—.
I didn’t see exactly how that collision happened.
It must have happened in an instant.
All I saw in that moment was something huge slamming into one side of the alley wall and bouncing away.
The horses’ screams, the scream of splintering wood, the short, dull scream of the carriage axle snapping.
All those screams tangled together in a single beat.
And when the dust from the wreckage rose again inside the alley,
Gregor stood there striking a proud pose.
“Hmph...!”
The paladin puffed out his chest as he struck a side-chest pose.
I said to the paladin,
“I’ll pay for the repair of that building too and bill the Order for it.”
“Sniffle.”
“And as for stripping off your top... that is a violation of the duty to maintain decorum, but... I’ll mention it to the bishop.”
“Sniffle.”
His beard drooped.
Gregor Ardenu (24 years old)
A record-setting ten incident reports in one month after becoming the Saint’s escort.