Sword Pilgrim

Kkkhhaaaaaa.

The moans of the dragonkin tribe, whose heads were being trampled on, echoed through the battlefield.

“Aaahh…!”

“These lizards look really disgusting when they wiggle.”

The imperial princess’ disgusted gaze looked down upon the dragonkin at her feet, struggling with his limbs as if suffering from a seizure.

When she withdrew her feet pressing down on him, he surged up and tried rush at her, only to be stopped by the surrounding knights. Spears pierced his legs and torso, holding him fast.

He couldn’t stand the pain, blood foaming at his mouth, but he still struggled to speak.

“Even though… I was defeated because I lacked strength! Soon our chief will come, to tear out your heart and eat it, you bitch!”

“Oh? Who’s your chief?”

“Philomatour! Chief of our clan! A powerhouse! You bastards, you should’ve stayed out of the swamp…”

Crunch!

The princess of the principality who’d been watching the scene from behind –

Rebecca, swung her mace, pulverizing the lizard’s skull, and still kept pounding all over the corpse.

“Do you have to do that?”

“So sayeth Radon, the God of the Mace. Swinging the mace is an act of purification.”

That was their principality’s doctrine.

Whoever the mace touched would have their sins forgiven, that was their particular way of granting mercy.

The imperial princess clicked her tongue seeing that bizarre doctrine in action.

The people of the principality were all honest-to-God lunatics, in her opinion.

“Anyway, things sure got pretty hairy this time.”

“Yeah. What even was that? All of a sudden, some kind of a net sprang up.”

“… Perhaps it was some kind of a sacred art.”

The grand princess’ eyebrows rose.

“I’ve never heard of divine magic that can exert such power. Maybe If you use sacred stones as a medium… But how could those lizards manage it?”

Those ramshackle beggars couldn’t possibly have so many sacred stones.

“Looks like someone else has done something. In a way outside our knowledge.”

There was a question in her voice.

Could this be something that he had done?

“They must have a helper.”

The ducal princess smiled softly and waved it off.

“Tch, how annoying.”

The grand princess clicked her tongue and looked around the forest.

It was filled with marshland, making it difficult for the soldiers to advance.

Besides, the trees made for narrow passages.

Such little room made swinging a spear quit the ordeal.

Those using short spears had it a little easier, but even for them moving across the swamps was cumbersome.

It was said that the basics of martial arts was to use the power of the lower body, but the soft spongy earth made using that power impossible.

This place was absolutely the lizards’ home ground.

It was a battleground made just for them.

‘Thanks to that, we took more damage than expected.’

The soldiers’ spirit had been curbed, and the knights had suffered dozens of casualties, if one counted both deaths and injuries.

“A lot of my soldiers have died.”

But the principality’s troops were almost unscathed. Because they’d been standing at the back.

“We’ll take the lead this time. After all, a mace is better than a spear inside a forest.”

Unlike the spear that would stumble inside a forest, the mace could just blow away all obstacles standing in its way.

Rather than the Imperial Army, the principality could play a more active role in this place.

Lavian mentioning the deaths her troops had suffered, was no different from outright ordering Princess Rebecca to take the lead.

But there was still a catch.

“The Voitra Forest is wide.”

They had no idea where exactly the lizards were hiding.

Even if they pursued the fleeing enemy now, if they fell for traps and ambush again like this time, they’d be in for another round of humiliation.

“Then start quickly. If you miss them, it’ll take a lot of time and effort to find them again.”

“I think we have to be careful. If they dig another trap with divine magic and wait in ambush, things would get dangerous.”

They weren’t familiar with the geography of the forest.

They didn’t know where the swamps were and where the earth was solid, and a reckless pursuit right after a long battle would exhaust the troops.

Neither the empire nor the principality was interested in suffering from a counterattack from mere lizards.

They had to be sure.

Furthermore, this was the Voitra Forest.

A bizarre place where trees that should’ve died and rotted away, had instead formed a forest full of marshland.

So they needed to take even more care.

“As long as we keep our guard up…”

While Rebecca was talking –

Lavian cut her off.

“Then we burn it down.”

“Uh, Grand Princess? The Voitra Forest is connected to the other forests in the area. A mistake could see this whole region covered in wildfire. Besides, this place is filled with swamps, so fire won’t catch properly.”

Why was Lavian telling her to burn the place while ignoring such a natural fact?

The Voitra Forest was wet.

This wasn’t winter, spring was in full bloom.

The winter earth had thawed but still retained the moisture, same as the trees and marshland that covered it.

‘As expected, she hasn’t thought things through…’

The moment Rebecca was about to laugh internally –

“Even if the fire catch properly, there’ll still be smoke. We’ll smoke the lizards out of hiding.”

“… I see.”

“And, I didn’t just come here without any preparation.”

As if they’d been waiting for the grand princess to finish speaking, some soldiers pulled in a cart.

“Is that –?”

The oak barrels stacked on the cart bed were full of black powder.

“Is that coal?”

“Powdered coal. And this alchemist back in the empire added something to it. It doesn’t really have any amazing properties. But –”

It was enough to burn this forest down.

“When…”

“I told them to bring it once you said we’ll have to search through the forest. Those bastards aren’t complete pushovers, after all.”

Contrary to her usual personality, Lavian had handled her work thoroughly this time.

And to achieve her own ambition, she had the necessary ruthlessness.

‘I don’t know who I’ll be facing, but unless it’s someone extraordinary…’

They’d be no match for her.

“What’re you lot standing around for? Start working.”

The forest began to burn.

The rising flames were reflected in Grand Princess Lavian’s eyes.

Her cherry-red lips curved up in an arc.

A bow.

“Thank you very much, sir.”

“Isn’t that what life is all about? A helping hand here, a helping hand there.”

“But, sir, you…”

Aldo, twirling the twin braids of his long beard in his fingers, recalled the discomfort he’d first felt a few hours ago.

‘Why are Serena and now Philo acting so respectfully towards Callis?’

After Serena had left to chase after Callius, Aldo had felt the trembling of the earth.

Partly because his race was sensitive to the sound of the earth, and even more so because his hometown was underground.

So, as soon as he’d felt a large army approaching, he’d left the town and joined Serena outside; and from that moment on, he’d felt that her attitude had become very strange.

She’d never been particularly polite. Serena was an elf, and from a noble bloodline at that, so she had a habit of looking down upon most other races.

It wasn’t that she had a bad personality, it was just how she’d been raised.

And Philomatour was somebody who had no use for politeness.

He’d spoken to Aldo upon their first meeting, despite the large age gap between then, quite rudely; but now he was choosing every word with care.

And even using honorifics!

Aldo was somehow feeling upset, but he was mature enough to not show it on his face.

“He’s a new colleague.”

“Colleague…”

Serena was fidgeting in the back, but nobody noticed it because they weren’t interested in her right now. All their attention was focused on Callius.

Sitting by one side of the cave, surrounded by fairy lights.

“I’ve been feeling this since yesterday, but there’re quite a few fairies here.”

Although to be honest, they were more lumps of condensed energy, not fit to be called true fairies.

They were circling around Callius’ body as if attracted to him.

Thanks to this, the inside of the cave was bright despite it being a dark dawn, and the lights lent a divine cast to the man’s features, as if they were looking upon the very image of a God.

Some of the dragonkin people were terrified at the sight of Callius, while others were moved to tears.

“Are you the lord of this forest?”

“This eminence is…”

Just as Serena was about to come forward and say something. Callius cut her off.

“I’m just a pilgrim.”

Serena realized what he meant and stepped back.

“Then that divine power…”

“I just borrowed the power of a fairy. It was nothing special.”

So all that was nothing special?

Philomatour, not daring to voice his thought out loud, coughed.

“Khm. On behalf of the clan, I express our gratitude to you, sir. Thanks to this, we were able to wipe out a large number of our enemies with minimal damage to ourselves.”

“It was just a matter of hitting two birds with one stone for me.”

That wasn’t a lie.

He’d acquired bewitching energy at the time and wanted to know how well would it combine with sacred art.

Of course, the effect turned out to be outstanding.

If he’d used a sacred stone, the power would’ve been even greater.

Because the Three Beliefs – Venerating Treasure was a spell whose power and efficiency was proportional to the potential of the treasure being sacrificed.

‘I used the carcasses of other Gods.’

He’d just used a lot of the weapons of other Gods that he’d picked up along his journey.

Maces inside the swamp, and spears under the earth.

Then he’d sacrificed them all at once to cast the spell of the Three Beliefs – Web Edict.

‘Web Edict’.

Literally, to teach using a net.

That was roughly what it meant.

‘As written in the [Book of Sullivian], Venerating Treasure type spells have good single-shot power and low mana cost.’

In addition, with enough time, it was possible to prepare combination techniques, with infinite uses. But of course, there were downsides as well.

The power varied greatly depending on the value of the treasure, and it took some time to prepare. Carving the spell formula upon a precious object wasn’t as easy or quick as he’d expected.

But its power was stronger than using nature, by Venerating Heaven.

‘Sorting by power alone, it’s Man – Treasure – Heaven, huh?’

The pros and cons were all obvious.

If you valued moderate power, efficiency and speed, use Venerating Heaven; and if you wanted strong power even if it took a long time, use Venerating Treasure.

‘If you need maximum strength even if you have to take an injury, use Venerating Man.’

Venerating Man type spells sacrificed the caster’s own body as the price.

It was excellent in both power and casting speed, but the cost was quite high.

So when you’re in a hurry, pray to heaven.

When you have time to prepare for battle, pray to treasures. And to commit an ultimate attack, pray to man.

Throughout this pilgrimage, Callius had been studying the Book of Sullivian, delving into the mysteries of the sacred arts.

Because Sullivian’s ultimate attack that had even imprisoned the pope –

– The ‘Circle of Illusion’, he really wanted to learn it!

In Sullivian’s book, which summarized the essence and culmination of her lifelong research, that spell was also described.

But for Callius it might as well be written in Greek.

‘The sacred spell I used was too shabby to even categorize properly.’

Sacred spells were relatively easily affected by the quality of divine power, and the spells in the [Book of Sullivian], which redefined the basics of the original sacred arts, had great potential for both power and utilization; but they were difficult to use in the hands of a novice.

Thanks to that, Callius had resorted to testing them out on bandits here and there, but the bewitching energy he’d gotten his hands on this time had made the power of his spells rise almost threefold.

Having confirmed the usefulness of Sullivian-style divine magic once again in his mind, Callius closed the book he’d flipped open and turned his attention to those around him, who were still sneaking a glance at him now and then.

“We can never leave this place. For the dragonkin people, the Voitra Forest is no less than a heavenly fortress.”

They were arguing between themselves.

“But think about it, old man! Even if we have the terrain advantage, it’s not just the imperials who’ve come for us, even the principality has tagged along! Their numbers and momentum are extraordinary. We can’t just stay stuck here like this!”

“No matter what, we absolutely cannot leave!”

The old people were being stubborn.

A smirk came to Callius’ lips at the sight.

“How naive.”

“!”

Glares were now coming his way.

If somebody else had said it, they would’ve started shouting by now, but the divine sight of him was still fresh in their minds.

“What would it matter once you’re all dead? The clan that you value so much, the forest that you consider your own land, will be nothing without the dragonkin people; it’ll just be a bunch of trees and marshes.”

Living had to come first.

Callius said so.

“Who are you…!”

“Does it matter who I am? Rather, I think it’s more important to prepare a way for you to live.”

Even if it meant ingloriously rolling in the mud, survival would make it worth it.

If you want to retain your honour even in death, will it still matter once there’s no one left to remember you?

“Where can we, refugees who’ve lost our homeland, go?”

“Anywhere. The earth is wide, and so is the sky. Your legs still work, don’t they? Don’t your eyes? You can go wherever your legs can take you, and see whatever there is to see. Then why hesitate?”

The elders gulped.

‘His words fill you with a sense of weariness.’

‘He really isn’t ordinary.’

‘Words that feel like they span across ten thousand eons…’

The elders of the dragonkin tribe were subdued.

Everyone could only look to the leader of the tribe –

Feeling the gazes upon him, Philomatour straightened his back.

“First of all…”

The moment he was about to say something –

His eyes jerked upwards.

“Ch-, Chief!”

“This…”

The forest was burning.

A haze of heat was rising from the burning forest, and black smoke engulfed the sky.

Had they fallen under siege already? The elders sighed at the black smoke rising from all directions in the forest.

“Are they planning to burn down the whole forest?”

The fire was already getting out of control.

That rising fire that looked like it could burn up the whole marsh wasn’t something that could be quenched by pouring water on it.

“…”

The dragonkin people were desperate.

Even Serena and Aldo, who’d come to their help, now sported stiff expressions.

“They really lit the forest on fire.”

Serena heard Callius mutter to himself, and suddenly sensed something strange.

The fairy lights that’d been hovering around him had all disappeared.