Book 3: Chapter Tenth Requirement of Rescuing a Princess: “Develop a Romantic Relationship with the Princess”
Ah, the Church of the God of Light! Ah, my Holy Temple! The moment I saw the grand and magnificent Church of the God of Light, my heart was unspeakably touched. I felt like a wanderer who had finally returned to his hometown and leapt into his mother’s arms after several decades of traveling…
Finally, I have returned! Returned to my wonderful life as a church hermit!
Although I maintained my elegant demeanor, the moment I jumped off the carriage I could not help but walk faster and faster in order to see the room I had said goodbye to for more than a month. However, I noticed many people gathered at the Holy Temple’s plaza as I was passing by. I frowned as I sensed two familiar people in the crowd.
Roland and his vice-captain, Tyler.
Even though both of them were completely surrounded by the crowd, I could hear constant sounds of swords clashing. I was stunned for a moment before becoming furious. How dare they hurt one another inside the Holy Temple!
I shoved my way through the crowd. At first, the gathered holy knights turned around impatiently. However, the instant they saw that it was me, they immediately jumped aside in shock to let me through.
I squeezed my way to the center of the crowd and indeed saw the two people fighting with swords. Their strokes were amazingly fast and merciless. Suddenly, I was afraid that if I stopped them a second too late one of them could be badly injured.
“Both of you stop this!”
I immediately shouted at the two of them. When I saw that both of them had indeed stopped fighting, I felt a little relieved. I then hollered angrily at the most familiar person in the crowd watching the fight. “Adair, why didn’t you stop them?”
Adair was stunned for a moment. He then quickly ran to my side and explained in a low voice, “Captain, it’s all right. Knight-Captain Hell was just exchanging blows with his vice-captain. For the past month, they have been sparring at this time every day. Sometimes, Knight-Captain Judgment will also join the fight.”
Once I heard that, I immediately looked at Roland and his vice-captain, Tyler. The two of them had already stopped the match and were both looking at me. They didn’t look like they were going to kill each other at all…Oh no! It seems I misunderstood, and I could not help but laugh at myself. Leaf’s death appears to have made my nerves too tense. No matter what, this place is still the Holy Temple’s plaza, which is always full of people. Could one of the Twelve Holy Knights or a vice-captain really die here?
Even if Adair did not stop them, Judgment would not possibly allow something like that to happen.
At this point, Adair whispered into my ear, explaining, “Captain, actually, Knight-Captain Hell promised Tyler that if Tyler defeated him, he would give the position of captain away to him. But after ten days of sparring, Tyler conceded defeat wholeheartedly. Now, Knight-Captain Hell is just instructing Tyler and the other members of the Hell Knight Platoon on their swordsmanship.”
I asked softly, “Has the problem really been solved?”
“Yes.” Adair nodded and said, “Now, if anyone dares to question Knight-Captain Hell’s authenticity, Tyler would be the first person to jump out to defend him.”
Extremely satisfied, I nodded and said, “Help me explain my actions. I want to go back to my room and apply a facial mask.”
“Captain?” Puzzled, Adair looked at me.
“…I mean, I want to return to my room to rest.” After suddenly realizing that I had spoken the truth, I quickly came up with another excuse.
“Yes sir, thank you for your hard work.”
I turned around and left. When I had walked far away, I vaguely heard Adair giving the crowd a one sentence explanation, “Nothing happened just now, understood?”
The crowd replied in unison, “Understood.”
Adair really deserves to be my vice-captain. He has the same style as his captain, being too lazy to even come up with a reason.
“Grisia!”
I turned my head around and said to Roland, who had chased after me, “Are you getting used to life in the Holy Temple?”
“I’m used to it, but is it really okay for me to continue living like this?” Roland caught up with me and slowed down to walk alongside me. With a little hesitation, he said, “If my identity is revealed, you…”
Annoyed, I rolled my eyes and said, “Do you still not understand even after living in the Holy Temple for more than a month? If Judgment and I work together, even if we pointed at an apple and called it a tomato, then from then onwards apples would be called tomatoes.”
Roland frowned and did not speak.
“Don’t worry, even if your identity was exposed, the worst that could happen is that you will need to be burned to death.” I purposely said, “If that happens, as long as you are willing to be burnt to death, then nothing bad will happen to me. So, are you willing to promise me that if you are ever exposed, you will let me tie you to a stake and burn you to death?”
“Yes.” Roland immediately nodded resolutely.
I smiled. As long as he could solve the problem by sacrificing himself, Roland would not worry. He was most afraid of implicating others, so this was the best way to convince him not to be worried. Judgment would not be so easily fooled. If he were the one being deceived, he would probably continue asking, “Then are you willing to swear to the God of Light that you would really burn me to death if the time comes?”
“Okay, Knight-Captain Hell, you should continue educating your vice-captain. Sun is tired and wishes to rest.”
“Sure.” Roland nodded his head cautiously. He said sternly, “Grisia… No! Sun, I swear to you, I will definitely do my best to fulfill my responsibilities as Hell Knight.”
On hearing this, I heaved another sigh of relief. The problem involving Roland has been solved, so it looks like I have many more relaxing days to look forward to!
A few days later, the Kingdom of Moon Orchid dispatched another secret emissary here. This time, even His Majesty, the king of my country, was shocked. He was particularly concerned about whether the Church of the God of Light had a secret agreement with the Kingdom of Moon Orchid.
Under the attentive gaze of the Twelve Holy Knights and Elijah, the knight specially sent by the king, the emissary from the Kingdom of Moon Orchid pulled out a stack of letters while grinning widely and said, “My country’s Princess Ann wishes to pass these items to Leaf Knight of the Church of the God of Light.”
Everyone glanced at the letters that were smeared with perfume and stacked as high as the pile of work documents in Storm’s arms.
One by one, the Twelve Holy Knights began to smile derisively.
Elijah scratched his head, and the serious expression he originally had disappeared without a trace.
Leaf bowed his head as he accepted the letters. At this point, the emissary from the Kingdom of Moon Orchid was still unwilling to leave. He said to Leaf, “Princess Ann ordered me to return only when I have your reply.”
By now, Leaf’s jaw was almost at his chest. He answered in a very small voice, “Okay.”
Then, with everyone watching, he fished out a few dozen letters from his shirt pocket (there was no perfume smeared on those letters, but that was probably because Leaf was simply too poor to afford perfume) and gave them to the emissary from the Kingdom of Moon Orchid.
After the satisfied emissary from the Kingdom of Moon Orchid had left carrying the few dozen letters, Blaze was the first to leap onto Leaf’s back and pound it, bellowing, “Leaf, you little brat, you’re actually dating a princess!”
“Dear God of Light! The good guy, Leaf, actually became the first among the Twelve Holy Knights to win a princess’s heart!”
In reality, Elijah was the first to win a princess’s heart, I refuted silently.
Earth Knight said bitterly, “The world has changed; princesses even fall in love with good guys now!”
Two streams of tears running down his face, Moon Knight swore to the symbol of the God of Light, “I want to be a good guy too!”
On hearing this, I felt deeply wronged.
I’m a good guy too! I’m even the leader of the Twelve Holy Knights, I look more handsome than Leaf, and my pay is higher than his! So, why do all the princesses in the whole world only know how to call me ‘despicable?’
Boo hoo, I-I…had no choice but to give myself a small source of comfort by going to the corridor specially meant for church hermits to search for a window with a good view of the beautiful female clerics in the Sanctuary of Light next door.
Damn it! I want to be a church hermit for the rest of my life! I wailed in my heart.
At this moment, Knight-Captain Judgment walked toward me, leaned on the same windowsill, and stared at the corridor in the Sanctuary of Light next door. After a long time, he finally opened his mouth and said, “The Sanctuary of Light is having a day off today.”
“I know that.”
“Then what are you looking at?”
“I’m looking at empty space and feeling miserable…”
Both of us looked at the empty corridor in the Sanctuary of Light for quite some time before Judgment opened his mouth and said, “Previously, when Leaf requested aid from the Holy Temple, he said that there seemed to be something wrong with your eyes.”
My heart skipped a beat. I shrugged and said, “He was too nervous. Do I look like a blind man at all? A blind man going to look at beautiful girls – what a joke.”
Judgment said plainly, “Then tell me, what color is that bird on the windowsill?”
I was silent for a moment before replying cautiously, “It’s white.”
There was a long silence. Judgment finally sighed faintly, “…Grisia, do you still intend to continue hiding this from me?”
Sure enough, there is no deceiving Judgment… I smiled a forced smile.
In the beginning, I used the excuse of being weak to lie down in Forest Leaf Town for several days. It looked like I was resting, but I was actually desperately practicing my ability to “sense the elements.” I didn’t sleep much during those ten days, so I thought that I had trained until my ability became flawless. Even when I went to seek revenge, Princess Alice, Awaitsun and Pink did not realize I was blind.
After that, on the way back to the Holy Temple, my sensing ability improved even further. I could even pick out the fine details of an object by piecing different elements together… What? This statement is too complex and you don’t understand it? Sigh! To put it simply, I could even tell how many buttons there are on a shirt.
In the end, I could tell, roughly, what a person’s face looked like and sense what expression a person had on his face… I nearly convinced myself that I wasn’t blind.
But no matter what, I could not sense “color.” Also, I could not differentiate between beauty and ugliness. In the mountain cave, when Alice asked me whether she was beautiful or not, I really didn’t know how pretty or not she was. In my mind, her features were made up of a combination of many elements and no longer had anything to do with “beauty” or “ugliness.”
Judgment frowned and said, “You didn’t tell me that Resurrection exacted such a high price from the caster.”
“There was no need to pay such a high price.” I said plainly, “It’s just that when I was performing Resurrection, I prayed to the God of Light, saying that I was willing to ‘pay any price’ for Leaf’s complete revival. You should know that I am always careful, so I would never gamble on that 25% chance. I cannot afford to gamble on it!”
Judgment fell silent for quite some time before saying, “Since that is so, you should stop blaming yourself for Leaf’s death. Every time you look at Leaf, you have an apologetic expression on your face.”
I sighed and said solemnly, “I will never leave any comrade behind again, never!”
Judgment said plainly, “I will also warn them that even if they have to jump off a cliff and die without a complete corpse, they must not die in front of you. Otherwise, who knows what you will come back missing next time.”
“…” I thought silently to myself. Even if they jumped off a cliff, as long as there is half a head left, I could probably revive them. It all depends on what price I will need to pay.
Judgment sighed and said, “You cannot save everybody, Grisia. I hope you understand this.”
“I understand.” Probably…
“Besides being unable to see color, does being blind have any other effect on you?” Judgment asked meticulously.
I tilted my head to the side and thought about it. I probably don’t have to mention the point about beauty and ugliness, do I? I answered honestly, “At first, there were some problems, but after practicing my elemental sensing, I no longer have any issues. I can now “see” more things than before and my field of vision is almost three hundred and sixty degrees. Still, I cannot see color.”
“Speaking of which…” I could not help but ask curiously, “Just what color is that bird on the windowsill?”
Judgment was silent for a moment. He then replied, “You were right, it is white.”
“You tricked me,” I said expressionlessly.
“Yes, I tricked you.”
Judgment nodded and admitted to his deception without feeling any guilt. He then added, “If you dare to hide anything from me again, regardless of how confidential the matter is, I will expose you in front of all the Twelve Holy Knights. Right now you should first think about how to apologize to Knight-Captain Hell, because I am going to tell him that you are blind. That will make him pay more attention to your safety.”
I wanted to cry but no tears came out. I pleaded, “Nooo! If you do that, then Roland will follow me around all day. He doesn’t even need to sleep, go to the toilet, or eat… Dear God of Light! I really don’t want to be stalked by a man all day! I would definitely go crazy!”
“Hey, hey! Judgment, don’t go away! Listen to me, as long as you don’t tell Roland, I’ll do anything you say. Lesus? Judgment…”