Chapter 95: God Forsaken Valley
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Benjamin turned around and looked shockingly at Michelle who had appeared out of nowhere. It was as if he saw a ghost.
Why was she here?
The holy knights should not be able to move around freely as of now other than the ones he just killed, the one who were tasked with keeping an eye out on other people’s movement. She should still be busy searching for the assassin’s whereabouts as a holy knight right now.
What was she doing here in Prison Ruins, with her mage robes no less?
What was going on?
"What are you doing here? Isn’t the church gathering the holy knights?" Benjamin poured out his confusion to her.
"Looks like you learned quite a few things when I was away." Michelle shook her head as she walked towards him. "The church is indeed gathering the holy knights. This has nothing to do with me as I am no longer a holy knight."
Benjamin’s confusion did not clear off after he heard what she said. In fact, he was even more confused as he had more questions that needed to be answered.
No longer a holy knight? What was the meaning of this?
Was the manager of the holy knight a reasonable human being where a holy knight could just resign and leave?
"What happened?" Benjamin asked.
Michelle shook her head and explained casually: "Nothing particular happened. It’s just that I am planning to leave the capital so I do not need to use my status of a holy knight to cover my identity anymore."
"So... You can choose to quit being a holy knight?"
"Of course not. You’ll be one of the church’s member once you have become a holy knight. The church will hunt that person down forever if they decided to leave the church." Michelle replied coldly.
Benjamin further questioned as he was getting more confused than before: "Then what about you?"
"My... My situation is a special one." Michelle was unwilling to answer as if she thought of something unpleasant: "Originally, women are not able to become a Holy Knight. However I was still able to become a holy knight. There’s nothing to ask about this kind of stuff."
"..."
So the holy knights were not supposed to recruit women?
Benjamin felt that his empirical senses of reality were slightly overthrown.
No wonder the couple, who were actually holy knights in disguise that were tasked to protect Benjamin, were actually both males. It was not because these people had fetishes in crossdressing but because it was very difficult to find a woman to act as the wife.
However, Benjamin was very curious how Michelle, as a woman, was able to become a holy knight, a mage and eventually resign her holy knight position.
How did she achieve all this?
How many more secrets were Michelle hiding?
What did she mean by "special situation"?
Benjamin could not stop his curiosity. However, after seeing Michelle’s current attitude, it was obvious that she did not plan to tell him anything.
What a mysterious girl...
"Oh right, here." Putting aside his curiosity, Benjamin took out a necklace from his pocket and threw it to Michelle. "Aren’t you looking for ways to open the treasury? You can open it by using this."
Since his questions were not answered, might as well clear all of the backlogs that was on his hands.
The incident regarding the treasure had been ongoing for too long. It was time to end it.
Michelle took the necklace and analysed it carefully. She then carefully put it away with a sigh of relief.
"Thank you." She said.
""Don’t thank me yet. This whole incident has been very strange." Benjamin shook his head and told her what he thought about the treasury and the necklace. "The necklace was purposely left in my room by my grandmother. I suspect that it’s the church’s trap to lure you to that place."
Although the church did not send anyone after him regarding the necklace, he still thought that the probability of it being a trap was still high.
Hence he told everything to Michelle and let her come up with the countermeasures.
"Don’t worry. I know what the church has been up to all this while. They do not have the time to deal with me." Michelle was very calm. "At most it is a trap set by your grandmother. I’ll be careful."
Was it not the church pulling the strings in the dark?
Benjamin was a little bit shocked.
It made sense after putting in some thought as the church had no time to deal with Michelle. To the church, Michelle was just a mage fleeing away from the church and was not more important than finding the assassin who attempted to assassinate the Pope and aristocrats. He was overly concerned about the whole situation.
It was most likely the old madame who was involved in this incident.
However...
Benjamin shrugged his shoulder as he thought until this point.
Do what you wish then.
He had been struggling with this issue for a long time. He might as well pass the issue to Michelle and let her figure it out for herself --- The treasure incident had been troubling him since he transmigrated here. It had wasted a lot of his energy.
Anyway, he did not want to care about this anymore.
In short, he had fulfilled his part of the deal by obtaining the key to the treasure for Michelle. He even reminded her that this might be a trap.
He did more than he was told.
It didn’t matter to Benjamin whether Michelle would successfully open the treasure or die in the trap.
"Weren’t you curious what Michelle was obsessed with in the treasury? Have you lost interest in this already?" The System appeared suddenly and asked Benjamin.
"... I have forgotten about this." Benjamin said so after a brief moment of silence.
That’s right, what was in the treasury?
He really wanted to know.
After some hesitation, Benjamin eventually asked her: "What are you looking for in the treasury?"
It was not like he was contradicting himself. It was because... his curiosity had always been this strong.
Luckily, Michelle wasn’t trying to hide this issue at all.
"It’s a treasure map." She said. "There was a record of a relic left by a very powerful mage, called "Soul’s Fire", a long time ago."
Benjamin was confused as he heard what she said.
Soul’s Fire?
Who in the world was that?
Why did he keep encountering people with weird and strange nicknames for these past few days?
Benjamin started to think whether he should give himself an impactful name as well. That way, people would give him a prefix when people told stories about him instead of just calling him "Benjamin Lithur".
... This was getting offtopic.
However, based on the nickname "Soul’s Fire", it was obvious that this legendary mage’s main element was fire magic.
"Benjamin asked the System about the "soul’s fire" background. The System, however, said that he might not be that strong since it had not heard of such a person.
Judging by the looks of it, His treasure was probably useless to Benjamin.
Hence, his desire to cure the thirst of his curiosity was no more.
However, since they were on the topic regarding treasure...
He suddenly recalled the mysterious map he had obtained from the bandit leader of Mount North.
He had been researching to find out which part of the world the map described since obtaining this map but to no avail. He was about to give up what the map meant as time passed on.
Now that he thought about it, the map was obtained from the knife scarred man and he had been actively searching for Michelle...
Perhaps Michelle would understand the content of this map?
Benjamin felt lucky as he had the habit of bringing out a bunch of items with him, even the useless ones, when he went out. Naturally, he was carrying this map as well.
He might as well let Michelle have a look at the map since this woman knew more than Benjamin.
Hence, he pulled out the map without any hesitation and passed it to Michelle.
"I have a weird map here. Do you know where it is showing?"
Michelle took the map from his hand and opened it without saying a single word.
However, her never changing poker face changed immediately once she had a look at the map.
"... Where did you get this map? She looked up as she asked seriously.
Benjamin was stunned and said: "I got it from the bandit leader of Mount North."
Based on Michelle’s reaction, was it something interesting?
Did she recognize the place on the map?
Michelle took a deep breathe after she heard Benjamin’s reply.
He stared at the map in silent for a while and finally spoke up: "This map... Remember the <> I gave you? The story about Abel and Cain? This map shows where their final battle was placed at, the God Forsaken Valley."