Holy Kingdom Elia
‘… Is it here?’
At the end of his gaze, in front of the white wall and the middle gate there stood two paladins in pure white armor.
Holy Kingdom Elia.
The smallest country on the continent. The largest temple on the continent.
This place is called the smallest country because it consists of only one fortress, and the largest temple because the whole fortress is one temple.
Vera, who had barely come to this place after riding his horse for a week, suddenly felt a surge of emotion at the white fortress at the end of his field of vision.
It was because he never dreamed that he would find this fortress on his own.
If it hadn’t been for a saint, it would have been a place he wouldn’t have been able to see if it wasn’t for the relationship that he made at the end of his life.
The reason he didn’t come here in his previous life… . It was because there was so much to lose when joining the Holy Kingdom at that time.
Clergy of the Holy Kingdom are not allowed to engage in personal economic activities. The reason was that they should not defile their faith by their thirst for wealth.
You couldn’t even get a title. The reason was that those who represent the will of God should not be blinded by their lust for power.
The only thing that could be obtained by becoming a paladin was honor.
So, Vera lived hiding his stigma all his life.
What Vera wanted in his last life was wealth and power.
In other words, it was luxury and pleasure.
As he continued to think, a suffocating laugh escaped out of Vera’s mouth.
‘I came all the way here because of you.’
A saint who could be described as an unblemished pure white lily growing in a pond of mud came to mind.
Four years from now, I will go to meet the saint on the day the stigma falls on her.
To keep my oath, to follow the light that shone on me at the end of my life.
What was needed for that.
‘… status.’
A procession to meet the saint. I needed a position to lead it.
That is, a position sufficient to lead the Paladins was required.
I had no worries about whether I could get there in four years.
He already had everything needed to become a citizen of Elia and become a paladin.
The stigma of the oath that came upon me.
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This was enough.
If you show this, you would get into the place of succession at once.
There, the apostleship can be recognized.
The power of the oath is also an authority with many great aspects, so if you show this stigma and ascend to the top of the apostle, the status of a paladin will come along with it.
Vera, who continued to think, moved slowly and headed towards Elia’s gate.
“Wait for me.”
I’m going to see you in 4 years.
I will not let you die as miserably as before.
I will not let you hide in the slum.
I will put you in the most honorable place, and I’ll live what I can finally call life next to you.
The moment the gap between Vera, who was absorbed in his thoughts, and the paladins guarding the gates, was reduced to about five steps.
thud-.
Two paladins hit the floor with a halberd at the same time.
“Stop, what are you here for?”
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Vera looked at the two paladins with rigid faces.
Twin Paladins with identical looks, brown hair, brown eyes, and a stout body with an angular jawline.
Even Vera knew their names. They were people who had made a name for themselves in his previous life.
Two of the apostles who received a stigma like himself, two who could be said to be the pillars of the Holy Kingdom.
‘Krek, Marek.’
Apostles of the guardian god Peyron, the twin paladins Krek and Marek.
The gatekeepers of the Holy Kingdom who became apostles by sharing one stigma.
In his previous life, when the demon king arrived and swept the continent, just these 2 alone prevented the demon king from invading the Holy Kingdom.
Vera felt a strange feeling as he actually met people he had only heard of through past rumors. He then raised his right arm and rolled up his sleeve.
It’s because he didn’t want to talk for a long time.
Vera looked at the twins who had their mouths wide open as they looked at the stigma on his arm and uttered a single sentence.
“I have a stigma on me.”
That one sentence was enough.
*
Located at the southernmost tip of the continent, it is a closed country where even priests cannot enter easily.
A weird country where all the priests in the state eat and live for their entire life with food and equipment they have saved for life, obtained by the priests who have been dispatched outside.
A country that would have been destroyed in less than a year if it wasn’t a place of gathering for those who were endowed with the power of the gods.
The Holy Kingdom Elia was such a country.
So, even for Vera, who had been to all the countries of the continent in his previous life, it was his first time entering the Holy Kingdom, that’s why he passed through the gate feeling a small expectation… .
‘… It’s the perfect place to get mentally ill.’
That expectation was shattered upon arrival.
Vera had a tired expression as he walked through the road that stretched beyond the castle gate.
White here, white there. All buildings were white in the Holy Kingdom.
Of course, there was vegetation like trees and plants such as flowers, so it was not just white, but nevertheless he was filled with a sense of repulsion because of the white buildings that stood out.
As I was walking with a frown on my forehead
“It’s Krek.”
Those words came out of nowhere.
Those words were uttered by the twin on the right as we were walking down the main street.
Vera turned to Krek at the words he had just heard, and Krek continued with a small introduction.
“I have received the stigma of guardianship. I’m an apostle in training.”
A barrage of words came out.
With that, in Vera’s mind, as a matter of course.
‘Are you an idiot?’
Such thoughts came to mind.
It wasn’t just because of his way of talking.
His eyes wide open, his nostrils twitching, or him unaware that the cloak was caught on the halberd he was holding. He looked so stupid that it hurts his mouth to even say anything.
After looking at him for a while, Vera didn’t feel the need to point out to him, so he ignored Krek’s behavior by simply accepting his greeting.
“… I’m Vera.”
“I see. Nice to meet you.”
“I am Marek.”
This time it was from the other side. Seeing Marek’s words and looking at him blankly, Vera was able to quickly finish his judgment.
‘It’s a pair of dummies.’
I thought they were the silent type because they didn’t talk the whole time, but they just seemed to have a bad head.
“I am also an apostle in training.”
“… Yes.”
There were no further words to follow up.
The twins did just what they said, and led Vera to the great temple at the end of the road and returned in the direction of the castle gate.
One of them, Krek, did not know that the cloak was hanging on the halberd until the moment he returned.
They were silent and weird people.
‘… Why are the Apostles like that?’
Does the God of Protection like idiots?
Vera, who had raised questions about the standard for stigmatization, immediately recalled the god of the oath that had given him stigma, and then the blasphemous thought that the gods might all be assholes.
He breathed a sigh of relief at the thought that came to him, and Vera’s gaze, who had been examining the inside of the Great Hall alone, turned to the mural that filled one wall of the Great Hall.
A mural depicting nine figures sitting on a huge altar.
‘… Nine gods.’
It was a mural on which they were painted.
Nine gods, led by the main god. Transcendentals who create and maintain the continent.
In the center, there was a figure surrounded by light, and next to him was a man with a mace and a man with a shield.
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One had a fruit in his hand, and another was holding a large book.
As he moved his gaze like that, he saw a portrait of a man, whose face was not revealed, with his entire body covered in robes, unlike other gods.
Vera knew at once who he was.
‘Lushan.’
Lushan, the god of oaths.
The one who judged Vera to be worthy of his stigma, was drawn there like a guardian amidst the sickly mortals.
While looking at him, Vera felt a question that had always been in a corner of his mind resurfaced.
What was Lushan thinking about when he inflicted stigma on him? Why did he inflict stigma on this evil being that only knows about himself?
I’ve been questioning it all my life, but I’ve never been able to figure it out.
‘… no.’
A question I hadn’t even tried to figure out.
Vera felt it re-emerging as he stared blankly at the mural.
“The god of oaths has no face.”
A voice came.
Vera shifted his gaze to the voice he heard, and found a weak-looking man who at first glance looked like a scholar and trembled.
‘… I didn’t feel any sign.’
There were no footsteps. There was no disturbance due to breathing. It didn’t even have an aura .
It was still the same even now that I saw him.
It was an odd feeling.
Even though there was an opponent in front of him, he didn’t feel any presence from the other person.
‘Who is it?’
Red eyes with water-colored hair. Pure white robe.
Judging from the fact that he was in the Great Hall, he seemed to be a high-ranking priest, but in Vera’s head there was no information about him.
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As Vera sharpened his senses at the rising vigilance, the man smiled and continued.
“Do you know why?”
It was a question related to the previous sentence.
Vera looked at the man who appeared for a moment, then clenched and released his fists to relieve tension, then licked his lips.
“… I do not know.”
“Because promises have no form. Therefore, the oath that represents that promise has no face.”
With that said, the man approached Vera and greeted him with a small sign on his chest.
“Nice to meet you. This is Trevor, who is in charge of the Great Hall as its custodian.”
“… I’m Vera.”
“I heard from the twins. Could you show me the stigma?”
Words full of light heartedness . As Vera nodded and rolled up his sleeves to reveal the scars, Trevor, who had been smiling all along, began to show abnormal behavior.
It was sudden.
Exactly, right after the stigma was revealed, not even a single moment passed, and his expression turned over in an instant.
Red pupils flickered at the end of his gaze. His expression frowned. The shoulders shuddered.
“Ahhh… .”
The moment when Vera took a step backwards, startled by Trevor’s sudden action.
Thump-.
Trevor fell to his knees and began to weep.
“Aaaah… !!!”
Vera was startled and trembled at the sight of Trevor who suddenly knelt down and cried aloud.
‘He is crazy.’
Such thoughts filled my mind.
It was natural. It would be natural for anyone with a normal mind to think like that.
How can a person who weeps without warning be seen as a normal person?
“Your hand has come upon this land, and your grace has touched it… .”
The appearance of a crying man howling while making a cross sign continuously.
Unknowingly, Vera came up with a question, ‘Was it the right decision to come here?’
The twin apostles met at the castle gate. The lunatic priest he met in the Great Hall.
They were all screwed up humans. They were crazy people.
Vera, who felt a sense of rejection from the bottom of his heart, recalled the thought that it might have been because of these humans that the saint had become such a strange woman.
‘… It’s justified.’
The saint was truly a noble and benevolent woman, but from some aspects, she was not very different from the people I saw here.
Someone who’s missing a screw and doesn’t know what she’s thinking.
The saint I was with the other day was such a person.
Vera recalled the thoughts he had while coming here once again.
A pure white city, a perfect place for mental illness.
She said she was blind, so she couldn’t see, but in a town like this, she must have gone insane because she was surrounded by humans close to psychopaths.
I want to go back right now. My former self was right. Such thoughts occurred to him.
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However, even while he was thinking about it, he decided to put up with it.
‘If the saint gets involved with these guys… .’
The saint will be like these bastards.
It was because of this thought.
Vera’s fists were clenched.
‘… It can not be allowed.’
I would never let that happen.