Betrayal Knight's Joyful Faith

Chapter 232

One by one, strange silhouettes came into view, slowly approaching from the other side of the dark road.The lord’s knights and soldiers each grabbed their weapons without realizing it.

The three knights of the royal family also drew their swords.

!

With a clear sound, the pure white sword blade that was revealed reflected the red hue of the torchlight.

“…I can see it.”

Wigens muttered unconsciously.

Enemies of all shapes, including those resembling humans, four-legged beasts, and insects, were advancing at a speed that was neither slow nor fast.

As they got close enough to see with his own eyes, he felt tension build up in the back of his neck.

But Wigens tried to pull himself together.

There were people who lost their lives, so he couldn’t be this scared.

The others seemed to be the same, as the faces hidden under their helmets were visibly turning pale.

He felt his senses getting tense as the enemies approached.

‘Wake up.’

The sound of his own heart pounding in his ears made him dizzy.

As they approached, the knights’ faces also turned pale.

Their reason was a little different though.

Arthur whispered so that no one else could hear.

“…Hey, are we really doing this?”

“We’ve already prepared everything. Why are you bringing it up now?”

“I don’t know.”

Then Arendt responded calmly, and Richt quietly turned away.

“Keeeeeek!”

Finally, the ones who had reached close by quickly started charging in.

Wigens and the knights of the territory also gripped their swords and tried to step forward.

But a cold voice stopped them.

“Wait a moment.”

It was Arendt.

“What?”

“Wait a little longer.”

Arendt, who told them to wait, raised his gloved hand in the air.

A cold chill blew in, and ice formed on the long barricade in an instant.

Although it was impossible to freeze the entire barricade, an ice shield was created that could hide several people.

“…!”

The soldiers were stunned by the sight.

Arendt’s gaze, filled with magical power, was fixed on the enemies.

Now, the distance between them and the enemies was less than 50 paces.

“Okay, thanks for your hard work.”

Arendt blurted out some incomprehensible encouragement.

For some reason, a smile appeared on his previously expressionless face.

While the dumbfounded Wigens blinked, Arendt passed by him and went out of the barricade.

Instead of kicking the ground and running at the ghouls…

.

He kicked one of the braziers that was lined up.

“Uh?”

For a moment, a stupid sound burst out from the mouths of those watching.

Under the pitch-black night sky, the flames from the overturned brazier looked unusually red.

“…”

.

The fire spread with a pleasant sound.

The dry grass scattered everywhere made for perfect firewood.

Arendt, arrogantly watching them with his arms crossed, had a red hue ripple across his pale face.

“I told you to do your job. Aren’t you going to answer? Get lost then.”

With those last words, the apprentice knight turned his back on the rapidly spreading flames and ran towards the ghouls.

Wigens muttered, staring blankly at the rising flames.

“Fire warfare…”

“The knights said they would carry out a fire attack.

So they prepared oil, braziers, and fire.

They also brought plenty of buckets of water to put out the fires in case of an emergency.

But they didn’t say how they would do the fire attack.

There was not a word about whether they would use arrows or throw Molotov cocktails.

“No way, no way…”

The smell of oil, which was particularly pungent, stung his nose.

And for some reason, several bottles of oil were missing.

Wigens’ face turned pale as he finally realized the situation.

“Hey, Captain! Captain! The fire is spreading!”

“Ahh! There’s a field over there!”

Wigens absentmindedly spoke as his subordinates screamed.

“Crazy…”

These crazy knights had already poured oil on the other side of the barricade before they even got there.

The fire spread in the blink of an eye, and soon a fierce wall of flames formed just a few steps away from the barricade.

The ghouls that had been attacking could not control their speed and started jumping into the flames.

“Keeeeeek!”

“Ugh, ugh!”

The scene turned into chaos in an instant.

The chaos also spread to Wigens and his men.

“Ouch, hot!”

“Ahh, it’s spreading, it’s spreading! Splash some water on it! Quickly!”

“Keeeeeek!”

The smell of burning meat, the screams of the ghouls, and the scorching heat— amidst all this, Wigens barely regained his senses.

“Don’t panic and just deal with the ones that pop out! The fire won’t spread beyond the barricade!”

Fortunately, the barricade was made of stone, so it seemed unlikely that the fire would spread.

Besides, Arendt had blown some cold air before he left.

“Okay, I understand!”

Only then did his subordinates come to their senses one by one and begin to grab their weapons.

The ghouls, still alive despite the fire, rushed outside and thrashed about.

The knights and soldiers were able to deal with them more easily.

.

“Oh no, there’s a vineyard over there!”

“It’s all burning, it’s all burning!”

The occasional wailing that burst out was unavoidable.

Arthur glanced behind him and muttered with an anxious expression.

“Hey, is this really okay? Is this okay?”

“At this point, they’ll probably fight while being cautious. It should be a bit easier to deal with the ghouls as well.”

Arendt, as always, had an indifferent expression on his face, but Arthur was different.

“But…! That’s true, but!”

“Wouldn’t it be better to burn a few fields than to die in vain?”

There would be no one who would force himself to follow along and fight alongside the knights.

They would be busy trying to stop the fire from spreading and slashing the ghouls that have jumped out of the flames.

Richt groaned as he focused on running.

“You shouldn’t say that so calmly. When we go back, we’ll be beaten by the captain.”

“…”

“Last time, we destroyed the castle gate. Before that, we blew up the villa that the lord cherished.”

“We gave them enough compensation. What’s important is that no one died.”

A shameless answer came back.

That was the attitude that was stimulating Laius’ stomachache.

The job was done too well.

They handled it well, too.

The problem was that there were more than a few people who ended up collapsing with a stiff neck during the process.

“And let’s get this straight. It wasn’t me who destroyed the gate, but Senior Richt, right?”

Arendt gathered his magical power.

A chill swept across the battlefield in an instant, and pure white snow bloomed above the ghouls that had been swarming around.

Arthur cut down the stiffened enemies with great skill.

!

A dull sensation of ice breaking was felt.

The enemies, who had scattered like shards of ice, were trampled by the advancing knights and turned to dust.

Richt, who had lost his words to make excuses, could only silently cut down his enemies.

“I don’t think we have to wait until the sun rises.”

Arthur, who had been moving mechanically, suddenly blurted out.

As they continued to cut down the enemies, relying solely on their senses, they soon found that their numbers had dwindled considerably.

Moreover, far away, Wigens seemed to have realized something and was taking his actions to the next level.

“Pour more oil!”

“Yes!”

The subordinates, upon hearing the order, began to splash the remaining oil on the floor, biting the bullet.

The way they handled it was extreme, but it was effective, because the ghouls couldn’t approach the barricade easily.

When Arendt and his party reduced the number of ghouls in the front by half, those who ran towards Wigens to avoid the knights would jump into the fire, become incapacitated, and get cut down by the soldiers repeatedly.

Arendt chuckled.

“It’s fortunate that he’s a smart guy.”

“He knows when to give up.”

Arthur clicked his tongue, followed by Richt’s response.

“We’d better hurry up and clean up. If we keep doing this and burn down the field, we’ll be in real trouble.”

Richt charged forward quickly.

The two men also followed and picked up their pace.

No matter what, they didn’t want Laius to scold them even more.

They cut down any enemies they could see in front of them and entered the empty village.

It was the place left behind after all the civilians had fled.

A few ghouls were wandering around in a village where there wasn’t any sign of life.

The houses, shattered, broken and in shambles from the fighting, looked like ruins prepared from the start for the walking corpses.

“…I actually wonder if it’s okay to call them ghouls.”

“Same. I think it would be much better to call them a breathing lump of flesh.”

Richt agreed with Arthur’s disgusted remark.

The three people slowly stopped walking.

The surroundings were completely quiet.

Arthur looked away from the ghouls staggering around with their mouths agape and asked Arendt.

“Wasn’t this village the first to be attacked?”

“I see some unfinished products walking around, so the base must be not far from here.”

Arendt nodded and looked around.

Those who wandered around aimlessly without even knowing where to go were, so to speak, ‘unfinished products’.

They were quite different from the ones who harassed Wigens and his colleagues and displayed fearsome fighting skills.

Those guys, who acted like something was broken, were spotted at several of the recent attack scenes.

And the sites where the unfinished ghouls were discovered had one more thing in common.

That was exactly the reason why the three of them had come all the way here.

When there was no sign of an enemy worth fighting, Richt clicked his tongue.

“Since it’s quiet, it seems they’ve pretty much used up everything they had for today.”

“Didn’t we slice through that much over there earlier? To make something usable, it will probably take some time.”

While Arthur was answering, Arendt was already walking ahead.

“If you have time to chat, search around.”

“You’re amazing, yeah.”

“I’m glad you know.”

When Arthur and Arendt started to argue, Richt spat out wearily.

“Stop fighting unnecessarily. It’s a headache.”

Even though there was a lot of meaningless chatter going on, their eyes that scanned the surroundings were as sharp as a well-honed blade.

“Uh… Uh uh.”

A scratchy groan escaped from the neck of the humanoid ghoul wandering nearby.

Apart from that, the world was just silent.

But the fact that this silence was false was something the three of them had already realized long ago.

Richt, who was walking at the forefront of the empty street, suddenly stopped moving.

Arthur and Arendt kept quiet and stopped as well.

Richt’s gaze fell on a small temple visible a little way from the village.

“…Over there.”

Compared to the main temple, it was a size that could be called a small hut.

There probably wasn’t even a priest, and inside there was just a statue of a god and an altar.

However, as if to prove that many people had been coming and going, the road from the village to the temple was polished and smooth.

It was a building that gave off a sense of simple and pious faith, but unfortunately, an ominous magic was flowing out of it.

Arthur clicked his tongue after confirming it.

“Anyway, they’re such disgusting people. How many times is this now?”

“It’s the perfect spot for pulling some shady tricks.”

Arendt answered briefly, casually taking a dagger out of his chest pocket and handing it over to Richt.

Richt threw the dagger into the air a couple of times as if to loosen his fingers, then caught it.

Soon, a clear black aura appeared on the dagger that had settled into Richt’s grasp.

“Prepare yourselves.”

Instead of answering, Arthur and Arendt readjusted their grips on their swords.

After confirming that the two had entered a fighting stance, Richt threw the dagger without hesitation.

The dagger, which had been slashing fiercely, soon struck the air near the temple.

It was blocked by the barrier surrounding the temple.

The clear night sky cracked open like a glass window that had been hit, and then finally…

!

The barrier shattered with a clear sound.

Behind the barrier that was dispersing into particles of light, the true form of the temple that had been trampled by the enemies came into view.