Vol 5 Chapter 19

'This is...'

The moment Kapros started walking carefully, something suddenly caught his eye.

"Huh..."

It was a red stick-like object blooming... no, stuck under a pile of stones. Unlike the stone walls that had maintained the appearance of collapsed walls until now, this pile of stones had an artificial shape, like the stone towers that hikers build by gathering small stones on mountains.

The moment he looked at it, as if on cue, the Aiagas attached to his left chest also began to vibrate, emitting a bright light.

'The Aiagas...!'

This phenomenon, which he had experienced several times during previous Superior quests. Feeling both relief and curiosity, Kapros slowly approached the stick. As he got closer, the light from the Aiagas grew stronger, eventually becoming bright enough to cover his entire field of vision.

Kapros carefully knelt down in front of the stick and examined it closely. It appeared to be a wooden stick with scribbles on it, wrapped tightly with thread-like red energy surging upwards. Following an almost instinctive feeling, Kapros reached out his hand, grasped the stick, took a deep breath, and pulled it sharply towards himself.

Fwoosh!

At that moment, light burst from somewhere, enveloping his body and dyeing his vision golden. He now knew better than anyone that this was the beginning of the sweet quest memory obtained after days of hardship.

When he opened his eyes, it was in the midst of a tense, urgent, and noisy flow of air.

Boom, bang!

- Graaah!

- Aaaah!

The first thing he saw was a desperate battlefield of monsters and humans viewed from a high place. While he was just watching, unable to grasp the situation at first, he heard shouts from beside him that seemed to squeeze out the energy of life.

"Don't give up! Mages, use the fastest spells you can! Archers, it doesn't matter if you're not accurate, just keep the monsters climbing the castle walls in check! If these walls are breached, next is the White Palace where His Majesty resides!"

"Fire!"

"Uwaaaaah!"

And while Kapros still couldn't grasp the situation, a strange yet familiar voice flowed naturally from his mouth.

"A shield of protection for all my allies. Full Protect."

'Is this... the first-person version of Superior's quest memory that I experienced once before?'

Although he had experienced it once with Lucrecian, adapting to it was harder than he thought. While he was still dazed, Superior's magic seemed to activate, and he felt the surrounding air vibrate once. A moment later, he saw a transparent blue barrier descend from the sky, covering everyone on the castle walls.

Protecting hundreds of people simultaneously. It was a spell of tremendous range.

"Oh! The Great Mage has regained his strength! Look at this magic! We will not lose!"

"Woooah!"

The morale of the allies skyrocketed in an instant.

However, even for a great mage, the sudden mana consumption seemed unavoidable, and Superior's body felt like it swayed backward for a moment.

Barely holding onto the wall, Superior sat down slowly, panting heavily.

"Damn it! We've come to this because of those stupid higher-ups, and they say it's for His Majesty?"

Superior cursed quietly so others couldn't hear and looked down at the fierce battlefield. The battlefield of killing and being killed was unfolding vividly, as if watching a movie. His gaze, which had been wandering aimlessly over them, soon stopped at one spot. A man with a large bow was single-handedly driving back enemies with incredible skill, shooting arrows accurately as if hunting.

Moving surprisingly lightly and quickly, yet shooting arrows with his upper body completely still, and nimbly turning his head to check escape routes - it was strangely out of place, but he was clearly a soldier bleeding from wounds all over.

"That person... was he the minor lord of Bistale?"

Superior muttered, staring intently at him. At that moment, three arrows with long crimson tails pierced through multiple enemies and disappeared with an explosion.

"Isn't that something you'd only see from elves? Why is someone like that out there?"

Just then, the sound of clanking armor and approaching footsteps stopped behind him.

"Superior."

When he turned around, there stood a man with brilliant blonde hair, wearing white armor with a blue-white cape and a holy symbol around his neck, looking down at him.

"Even for an 8th circle great mage, if you use so much magic alone like today, won't you be unable to get up tomorrow?"

"I didn't use that much."

Superior answered, hiding his exhaustion, and stood up abruptly. The man shook his head with a determined face and lifted the edge of his cape to wrap around Superior's body, picking him up. At that moment, Kapros couldn't help but look at the man again, startled by the bronze gauntlets covering his hands.

'Golden Gauntlet...?'

A man wearing the same item that had appeared in Kran's quest. Now that he looked closely, it was the Shine Knight who had passed by vaguely in previous memories.

'Ah... so this is what he looked like.'

As he was thinking this, the Shine Knight opened his tightly closed mouth.

"No. Please retire for today."

"Hey. No matter how close you've become with that guy, you should imitate the right things. What is this? Really. Just tell me to go back to the castle, and I'll go on my own. You don't need to be this dramatic."

As Superior spoke incredulously, suddenly wrapped in the cape and lifted up, the man smiled slightly on his handsome face.

"No. Aren't you one of this country's hopes? I'm just doing my best with what my friend asked of me, to ensure that your precious self doesn't get hurt any further."

"This is driving me crazy... When is the Dark Flame Knight Order coming back? At least if I'm going to hear the same nagging, it's better from someone I'm more familiar with. This is nothing but torture!"

Superior was about to go limp, shouting like that, when he suddenly turned his head. In his field of vision, he saw the man with the bow, who had been handling enemies fairly easily until just now, fallen with his leg pierced by a grotesque monster with more than ten arms.