Chapter 225: Curse of the Great Knight [4]

Chapter 224

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Episode 56 - Curse of the Great Knight [4]

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The air twisted slightly. Raon ran with a sword in his hand as his expression turned completely serious.

He sprinted through the forest, gritting his teeth as blood spilled from his mouth.

Sweat beaded across his forehead, his eyelids grew heavy, and every part of his body cried out for rest.

’I-I have to make it... before what the Countess said happens... Please, Miss Teresa and Young Lady Vilenia... let both of you still be safe.’

***

A few moments earlier.

Raon took long strides and, in the blink of an eye, arrived at the place where the Countess had shouted his name.

Clank!

He kicked the door open and entered the inn where he had been living together with Williams.

As soon as he stepped inside and looked around, his eyes immediately locked onto the figure of a woman.

She looked like an adult version of Vilenia; however...

"C-Countess, what happened...? W-why are you like this...?"

Her body was so thin that anyone could have mistaken her for a sack of bones.

There were marks around her wrists and ankles.

Countless scars and traces of dried blood covered her entire body.

She trembled slightly as she sat in a chair, and beside her stood the inn’s personal maid.

Seeing his mistress in such a state, Raon approached with a grim expression.

Then his face hardened, and he asked,

"W-who did this...? Just tell me their names... and I’ll go kill every single one of them. Please, Countess, tell me their names."

He gripped his sword with tremendous force as his teeth ground together.

The maid flinched, and her body began to tremble. The reason was that she could feel a strange aura emanating from Raon, one that filled her with absolute terror.

The Countess, breathing in ragged gasps, spoke softly...

"My daughter... Raon, go save her... a-and then flee this Kingdom..."

"...."

Raon’s expression froze, and his eyes widened.

"W-what do you mean, Countess...? I-I could never leave you and Sir behind..."

The Countess looked at Raon with eyes that were empty, yet pleading at the same time.

Raon fell silent as he met her gaze. Then he finally noticed it.

"Raon... you’ve been with us for so long... you’ve remained completely loyal, even when everyone betrayed you... even now, when I’m dying... you’re still so loyal..."

A smile appeared on her face.

"My husband is already gone... Raon, I’ll be joining him now, but please... go save my daughter... I ask this as my final wish... save her and take her far away from this Kingdom... please, Raon."

"....."

Raon lowered his head as countless emotions welled up inside him.

He gripped the hilt of his sword so tightly that his hands trembled, while tears streamed from his eyes.

"T-thank you... for everything, Sir. Raon."

Her breathing finally stopped. Raon’s ears could no longer hear the Countess’s heartbeat.

At that moment, he instantly knew that she had died, without even needing to raise his head and look at her.

Raon wiped away his tears and rose from the floor. Then he looked at the Countess.

Finally, he knelt on one knee, held his sword with both hands, lowered his head, and said,

"I will faithfully fulfill your final wish, my lady."

When he raised his head, he wore a smile.

Even though his expression was filled with sorrow, Raon always remembered his master’s words.

’Even in the most painful moments, always wear a bright smile.’

***

The present.

The forest stirred all around him. It was pitch-black, and monsters were awakening everywhere.

Raon swung his sword as dozens of monsters charged toward him.

With simple movements, he cut them down and cleared his path without stopping for even a single second.

He could not afford to waste any more time.

As he ran, he saw a yellow light in the far distance where his destination lay.

’Fire...’

He clenched his teeth and, channeling even more Mana, dashed through the forest, crossing it in a matter of seconds.

His figure blurred before reappearing in front of a grand mansion shrouded in a massive veil of flames.

Dozens of bodies lay scattered around the mansion. The moment Raon saw them, he recognized them as knights under the King’s command.

’Why...? Damn it. I thought you were being threatened or controlled by someone, but...’

Raon realized that the King had been making those decisions of his own free will, not because someone was controlling him or giving him orders.

He simply wanted to kill him.

The reason...

Raon simply could not understand why, but it no longer mattered.

Boom!

His figure vanished, and the first knight he saw inside the mansion was fighting against the staff Teresa had hired.

Raon swung his sword and cleaved the knight’s body in half along with his armor.

Then he looked around and, without the slightest hesitation, moved with all his strength, massacring the knights with slashes coming from every direction.

Blood splattered across his body as the flames consumed parts of his skin.

Meanwhile, the knights who had noticed Raon’s presence charged toward him, brandishing their swords.

The mages responsible for the fire stopped attacking the personnel trained for combat and redirected all of their spells toward Raon.

Using Mana, Raon created multiple spheres of condensed Mana and hurled them at the mages’ various spells.

Boom! Boom!

Debris rained down from the ceiling as a large portion of the mansion collapsed.

After cutting down all the knights on the first floor along with the mages, Raon headed to the second floor.

He ran down a hallway as blood poured from his body and cold sweat constantly dripped onto the floor.

The hallway was filled with corpses. He ran through it and reached the end, where screams and the clash of swords echoed.

"....?!"

The moment he stepped into a large hall, countless bodies lay scattered across the floor, and not far away...

Teresa, missing her left arm and covered in countless wounds, fought with all her strength.

Behind her stood a butler holding a sword, and behind him was a little girl with tears filling her eyes, crying with all her might.

Raon blinked for a second, then moved.

Clank! Boom!

His body blurred and appeared behind dozens of knights.

Then he swung his sword, and the knights’ heads flew through the air like soccer balls.

Blood sprayed into the air before covering the ground and forming a massive crimson pool.

"Sir Raon...?"

Seeing Raon appear out of nowhere, Teresa cried out his name.

Raon looked at Teresa with a reassuring smile, his breathing ragged and his vision slightly blurred as blood streamed from his body.

It was a reassuring smile, one that tried to hide his weakness.

"It has been a while, Miss Teresa, and..."

His gaze shifted to the little girl staring at him with tear-filled eyes.

"It has been a while, Young Miss Vilenia."

"M-Mr. Raon..."

Smiling, Raon nodded. Then Vilenia ran toward him and embraced him as she cried silently.

In truth, not much time had passed.

Several weeks, perhaps. A little over a month at most.

But it was more than enough time to feel like an eternity.

Raon gently stroked her head and said,

"We’re going to be alright, Young Miss, and I promise I won’t leave again like I did before."

It had been a truly cowardly decision. Even so, back then he had convinced himself it was for Vilenia’s safety and everyone else’s.

But now that the King simply wanted to kill Vilenia and the rest of her family...

There was no longer any reason to stay away from them.

He tightened his grip on his sword as he felt his anger rise.

’I swear I’ll kill him... Someday I’ll kill the King, the man I once admired so blindly.’

However, his revenge would have to wait.

First, they had to escape the Kingdom and survive their current situation.

’I don’t know if he sent both of them or only one.’

There were three Seven-Star Knights in the Kingdom of Valroa.

Raon was one of them; the other two always served directly under the King’s orders.

’I don’t know if they’ve come, so we need to leave as soon as possible.’

He looked up at Teresa.

"I sent Williams to prepare a means of transportation. He’s a few kilometers away, deep within the forest. We have to get there."

Teresa and the butler standing behind her nodded.

"Then let’s not waste any time. We have to—"

Just as Raon was about to finish speaking...

A voice reached his ears from behind.

It was a voice he knew all too well.

’No... damn it...’

One of the Seven-Star Knights.

Raon turned around and looked at a man calmly walking toward them.

"It’s been a long time, my good friend Raon. We haven’t seen each other since you left the battlefield, have we?"

Raon could only curse his bad luck in silence.

’Of all people, it had to be this crazy bastard, didn’t it?’

The man standing before him was known as the Psychopath Knight because of the disgraceful way he killed his enemies.

He did not possess even the slightest trace of honor or virtue.

He was someone who killed because he enjoyed it, far more than out of any sense of justice.

And that very person was standing right in front of him.