Chapter 138. Following the Light in the Darkness (3)
Creak- Creeak-.
In a room filled with a terrible silence, only the sound of creaking wood echoed softly.
“Is this truly the will of the goddesses?”
A young man with blond hair asked as he looked at the evidence of sin swaying silently before him.
“…No, it is not.”
A middle-aged man with the same hair color as the young man replied.
“But it is an honorable deed.”
The young man looked at the middle-aged man with bloodshot eyes and asked.
“How can this be an honorable deed, Father?”
The blond young man, Adolf, asked his father back, his voice choked with tears.
For tonight, everything he had known and believed in had crumbled.
Honor, pride, self-respect.
And even the man he had relied on like a father.
Tears, which he couldn't tell if they were from sadness, anger, or fear, streamed down his face.
“We will open a new world.”
Diano Maximilian, the head of the Maximilian family, answered.
“The world of the goddesses is setting, and a new sun is rising.”
Diano’s eyes, as he looked at his son, grew cold.
“We are holding the doorknob to a new world. I hope you take pride in that, my son.”
Diano patted Adolf’s shoulder and left the scene of the crime.
As he left the room, Adolf was the only living person left there.
“No, Father… I don’t think that’s it.”
The blond young man dropped his head and sobbed in the now-empty room.
“If only I had been more honorable… and had become a knight chosen by the goddesses…”
The pitiful young man, whose world had collapsed today, hid his heart in guilt.
Creak- Creeak-.
Adolf raised his tear-stained eyes and looked at the evidence of sin swaying silently in front of him.
His eyes were constantly wavering, but his focus was sharp.
“Uncle was right.”
Adolf realized.
The only thing that could rebuild his shattered world was true honor.
He decided to seek the light.
Adolf wiped away his tears and left the room filled only with darkness.
Carlo, who was watching his final departure, said nothing.
The evidence of the sin committed by the Maximilian family was silently swaying from the ceiling.
***
Although he had boldly declared his challenge, Adolf was not properly comprehending what was happening to him right now.
“Ugh-!”
Flashing lightning surrounded him from all sides.
Among the ceaselessly flashing lights, a knight moved with a chilling presence.
He was a man whose movements carried death, whose eyes held madness, and whose sword burned with rage.
Blanc Cadmus.
The beautiful beast was baring its teeth and smiling.
The black wolf of Cadmus tore through the distance Adolf had set with a hegemonic momentum.
“Gasp-!”
Adolf was startled to see Blanc, who had reached right in front of him in an instant.
He knew that the man named Blanc Cadmus was a skilled knight, but he did not know that he was the type of knight who closed the distance so extremely.
Even Blanc’s master, Edwin, the Knight of Swiftness, would probably not be this extreme.
Blanc’s current form was more akin to the sword path of a gladiator who craved only victory, rather than that of a knight.
Seeing Blanc’s eyes, which were fierce, desperate, and held only the target in front of him, Adolf was so confused that he even mistook who was challenging whom.
“Hngh-!”
Adolf was disoriented by Blanc’s fierce movements, which seemed to be burning him up.
His form was by far the hottest and most desperate among all the knights he had ever met.
“Hup!”
CLANG-!
Sparks flew fiercely as the swords clashed.
Adolf barely managed to block Blanc, who had reached his face in an instant, but he had no time to catch his breath.
BANG-! BANG-! BANG-!
At the ceaseless barrage of white light, Adolf fell under the illusion that not only his sword but also his very soul was shaking.
‘I never thought it would be this much!’
Adolf Maximilian.
The knight who was considered to be the one to lead the next generation of the Maximilian family.
Adolf’s arrogance had always stemmed from his skill, but today he realized.
That he was a frog in a well.
That there was another sky beyond the sky.
Just as Blanc had expanded his world by seeing the sword of Aselheit, Adolf was also feeling another world by seeing Blanc’s sword.
“I hope you can hold out a little longer. You are the first to challenge this sword, after all.”
The wolf’s fangs were glinting.
Adolf fell into the emotion of fear as he saw Blanc rushing to bite his neck.
The sword of Aselheit was intricately entangled with the sword he was holding.
BANG-! BANG-! BANG!
The sound of Blanc’s sword relentlessly striking Adolf’s sword echoed throughout the Cadmus mansion.
However, despite the loud noise that shook the mansion, the elves just sat quietly in the reception room, drinking tea.
Emilia thought that the elves looked similar to potted plants basking in the sunlight.
“Excellent.”
As Beronion said “excellent” while drinking tea, Emilia felt her own shoulders straighten with pride for some reason.
Because Emilia had pride in the mint tea that Ciella had made.
“This is a tea that the Countess put special care into making.”
Emilia answered Beronion’s words with pride, but the green-eyed elf said nothing.
He hadn’t been calling the mint tea excellent in the first place.
Beronion quietly closed his eyes and pricked up his ears to listen to the song of the swords carried on the wind.
The roar of the black wolf he heard within it touched Beronion’s heart as intensely as the mint tea.
Although his eyes were closed, the trajectory of the knight named Blanc’s sword was being drawn in his mind.
His sword, in which passion and anger, fervor and arrogance coexisted.
“Excellent.”
***
CLANG-!
Unable to withstand Blanc’s momentum, Adolf finally dropped his sword.
His sword flew far away and landed at the feet of one of the knights who was forming the circle.
“Gasp-! Gasp-!”
Adolf, drenched in sweat, looked at Blanc in front of him with terrified eyes.
That man was no knight.
He might be honorable, but he was definitely not a man who wielded his sword with the mindset of a knight.
He had no intention of wielding his sword more beautifully.
He was just a man who had cast aside his pride and was struggling to take one step forward.
“Do you concede?”
Blanc’s breathing was not even ragged.
At his appearance, which seemed to say that he was not even a post-meal workout, Adolf was broken by Blanc in both skill and spirit.
Adolf looked down at his torn and bleeding palm.
At his own hand that had failed to hold onto the sword until the end.
With each drop of red blood that fell to the floor, Adolf felt as if he were sinking into a despair that words could not describe.
“…”
Instead of answering Blanc’s question, Adolf approached the spot where his sword was stuck.
His still-trembling sword was crying out that it could do more, but Adolf, whose spirit was already broken, could not hear the ringing of his sword.
It was at that moment.
-What is honor, knight of Maximilian?
A question sharply pierced Adolf’s ear.
“…What?”
Adolf raised his head at the sudden question and looked in the direction the voice came from.
There was a knight looking at him with a greatsword planted in the ground.
The disgraced knight in black armor with white ghost fire rising from him.
Barzio.
-When a knight has lost his way, he must always move in search of the light called honor.
At Barzio’s words, Adolf found himself nodding his head.
What is honor?
It was a question he had harbored since he was not chosen by the sword of the blessed goddesses, and since he had left the mansion of the Maximilian family in search of light in the darkness.
Why did the goddesses not choose him?
Why did people praise a man named Blanc as more honorable than him?
Why did he have no choice but to cast everything aside and come here to Norington?
Barzio pointed to Adolf’s sword with his fingertip and said.
-I hope you will first find the true value that lies within you, rather than the judgment of others.
Adolf stared at Barzio’s ghost fire as if he were possessed by something.
He was pointing his finger, telling Adolf, who was wandering in the darkness just like his past self, that there was light over there.
-Do not forget that honor is like a delicate flower planted in the ground of conscience.
Barzio, who had only realized what he lacked after killing the last of the Assinsao.
He hoped that Adolf would not walk the same path as him.
That he would walk a different path from himself, who had been sealed in a crumbling mansion for nearly a hundred years to find true honor.
Hearing Barzio’s words, Adolf quietly raised his head and looked towards where Blanc was.
Lights passing through the colorful windows were shining from behind Blanc.
Adolf followed the light with his gaze.
The point where the light ended was at his own feet.
“…”
Adolf quietly lifted his foot and took a step into that light.
And then he was completely within the light.
-You should take your sword.
Adolf, who had been blankly following Barzio’s words, pulled his sword from the ground where it was stuck.
The drops of blood that had flowed from his torn palm trickled down his sword.
It felt like he was grasping something.
Something he had never felt before in his life.
“But I still do not understand.”
Adolf raised his eyes and spoke to Blanc, who was shrouded in light.
“So, please tell me.”
The pitiful knight who had escaped from a room full of darkness held a blood-stained sword and walked into the light.
What is honor?
Adolf wanted to know.
That was why he moved forward.
***
“Please have some.”
The Cadmus family’s butler, Billy, placed a cup of green tea down, but Gornas just stood with his hands behind his back, glaring at the door of the reception room.
At his momentum, which seemed as if it would split the door, Billy and Ulvent stood there, not knowing what to do.
“I should have come a little earlier.”
“Pardon?”
Billy asked back at Gornas' quiet monologue, but Gornas, who was already lost in his own world, quietly raised his aura and sharpened his senses.
Beyond that door, across the corridor, two knights were crossing swords in the great lobby that was finally reached.
Gornas caught the trembling of the air that echoed from there.
The trembling created by Adolf of Maximilian and the Sixth Knight of Aselheit, who was facing him, as their swords met.
Gornas was also well aware of the knight named Adolf, who was from the same kingdom.
He was an exceptional knight among those of his age, but he had not caught the eye of Gornas, who was already dissatisfied with the knights of his own age.
“…”
The quietly echoing clash of swords was felt by Gornas.
The sound of the clash grew rougher and more intense over time, and it was also becoming more complete.
Feeling Adolf shedding his own limits little by little each time he crossed swords with Blanc, Gornas was smiling fiercely.
“They’re really having fun.”
Gornas placed his hands on his hips and let out a big sigh.
“Was Adolf Maximilian really the only one who challenged the Sixth Knight of Aselheit?”
Overwhelmed by Gornas' slowly creeping momentum, Ulvent just stared with wide eyes and nodded his head.
Seeing Ulvent’s nod, Gornas looked up at the ceiling as if genuinely disappointed.
“I’ve been robbed of the first time…”
Gornas' left hand unconsciously stroked the end of his sword.
At Adolf’s yell that came from beyond, Gornas felt his blood boil.
Instead of suppressing his fighting spirit, he quietly closed his eyes and tried to grasp the duel taking place in the lobby through his sharpened senses.
A knight, roughly thrown to the floor, was fumbling on the ground and struggling to get up.
That was the only thing Adolf could do.
It was the only method he could choose as a man who held a sword, and it was the only thing that the ruler of this place, Blanc, had allowed.
However, the realization Adolf had just gained was only a very small one, and with that alone, it was impossible to overcome the great wall that was Blanc.
Nevertheless, Adolf got up again.
CLANG-!
Within the two roughly entangled swords, Blanc and Adolf met each other’s eyes.
“Let’s stop now. This is a challenge, not a duel to the death…”
Blanc could not finish his sentence.
Because Adolf was lunging at him with a headbutt.
The beautiful trajectory of a sword.
A perfect victory.
Shining honor and pride.
The knight of Maximilian began to struggle to find the true value within himself, casting all those things aside.
He began to struggle to break free from the dark shell of Maximilian.
“I still don’t know!”
He was moving his steps, following the light in the darkness.