Chapter 149 - Holy Knight Shin

Heyo. Shin here, one of the Holy Knights.

Well, the occupation is still Knight, though….

Here at Sanctum, the title of Holy Knight is bestowed on the knights who protect the Saint.

It’s easy to confuse Holy Knight as an occupation, but then, you can’t be one unless you’re an Isekai Hero, so yeah, it’s not a big deal.

So, about being Sanctum’s protector of the Saint — in other words, this Holy Knight job — believe me or not, was quite difficult.

They’d judge the combat ability, test the aptitude, check how loyal the candidate would be to the Saint and how faithful he was to the Creator God. Then, even if he managed to pass all of that, a hell-mode training would be awaiting him.

When he manages to pass all that, then congrats, he’s eligible to become the retainer and protector of the Saint. And you know, I finally became a Holy Knight who could protect Her Ladyship last month.

I was over the moon, that time.

The Saint was a gorgeous beauty after all.

I had admired her since I was a kid, you know.

I took an oath to the Creator God that I’d protect Her Ladyship at all cost, even in exchange for my own life.

Protecting the Saint was given in this job, but another important work for a Holy Knight was to be the Saint’s escort whenever she went out of the city.

The Saint leaves the Holy City once every three months to visit different countries and save many people through her miracles as she goes around.

It was a very noble calling, if you ask me.

And because I was a novice Holy Knight, the expedition this time was my first time to escort her. We didn’t have any problems on our way, and during our sojourns.

Then, on our way back — we could already see the Outer Walls of the Holy City from our vantage point, you know — we were attacked.

Around 30 burglar-ish people attacked us.

Only 10 Holy Knights, including me, were travelling together with Her Ladyship, but normal thieves did not have a chance against us, even if there were a hundred of them.

— Normal thief, that is.

These thieves were a different story.

One of the Senior Holy Knights cut off the arm of one of the thieves, but that guy didn’t even flinch, and he rushed towards the senior and bit him on the neck.

Five knights were killed during the first wave.

The thieves didn’t even feel terror and they kept on attacking us even if they already lost their arms and legs, as if they were puppets being controlled by someone else.

They weren’t revived again if we crushed their skulls or lopped their heads, so between the remaining four Senior Holy Knights and me, we managed to slay 20 of those thieves.

Only 8 remained.

We can protect the Saint at this rate.

Just when I thought of that —

The seniors fell one after the other.

The thieves used a strong poison in their weapons, it seemed, so they were already killed just from a light scratch.

I won’t be bragging , but I was considered quite strong. Even if the nine seniors who came with us in this expedition teamed up together to fight against me, I was pretty confident I could win.

I had the [Eye of Magic], after all, and I could see the mana of my opponents thanks to this skill.

All of the strong ones had been manipulating the mana within their bodies to attack us. They moved their mana faster than their bodies. In short, I could predict what move they were gonna use based on the flow of their mana.

It was not worth mentioning against guys who didn’t move their mana to attack, but those people were generally weak, so there was no way I were going to lose against them.

I’d been training since I was a kid, fully prepared to die, after all.

That was why I defeated 10 of the thieves without a single graze. Well, I didn’t have the leeway to protect the seniors, though.

……..Sorry.

Only 8 thieves remained.

I could defeat 7 of them.

The only problem was the guy who seemed to be the boss.

That guy was the only one who had a different kind of mana. I had never seen the likes of it before — it was totally unimaginable for a person to have that amount of mana.

Not really sure about this, but that guy was prolly a warlock.

It is said that they have an unbelievable amount of mana.

If there were 10 of us, then we could do something about this boss — that was his level.

He prolly controlled all the other guys, I guess. I could see strands of mana oozing from him and they were connected to the heads of those guys.

Boss used his underlings to attack us, but he himself hadn’t made a move yet.

I tried to hatch a plan — I was going to defeat all the underlings, do something about that boss, and let Her Ladyship escape first in the meantime, but —

“You guys go capture the Saint. I’m going to deal with this one.”

Boss was wide open as he stood before us.

…….We were doomed.

His humanoid eyes were staring at me, after all.

Not sure if Boss was preparing to kill me, but his mana suddenly surged and swelled within him.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the Boss.

I would prolly die the moment I take my eyes off him.

I stood rooted to the spot, while the thieves rushed past me from left to right, dashing towards the carriage that carried the Saint —

“Holy Lance!”

Magic overflowed from the carriage, and the four thieves were pierced before they were annihilated.

It was Her Ladyship’s magic.

“Shin, please run away.”

The Saint had alighted from the carriage and ran towards me before I even noticed it. She then told me that.

Her voice was trembling a little.

She probably noticed that the thieves’ boss was no ordinary person.

Despite that, Her Ladyship still glared at the Boss, and she pointed the rapier she was holding towards him.

I was over the moon, notwithstanding the danger we were facing now, because the Saint already remembered my name, even though I was just assigned to her.

“My duty is to protect Your Ladyship, you know? For me to run away —”

I confirmed with my Eye of Magic that three of the thieves were stealthy creeping behind us, muffling their steps.

“There’s no way that’s gonna happen!!”

I slashed the three thieves.

I could move because the Boss’ attention shifted to the rapier that the Saint pointed to him.

With this, fighting became a lot easier.

The only remaining thing to do was let the Saint escape.

It was totally impossible for the current me to defeat this warlock.

If it was the Saint, then she could maybe do it.

If she still had some mana from the Creator God remaining in her —

However, she had been going to various countries and performing several miracles, so she didn’t have much Holy Mana remaining within her.

This warlock, no doubt, anticipated and aimed for that, so he attacked us on this spot.

But, we could already see the Holy City, so if Her Ladyship was willing to escape, then I only had to buy some time and stop the warlock.

I couldn’t defeat him, but I could be a hindrance.

I had my Eye of Magic, after all.

This Eye of Magic wasn’t all about seeing mana, after all.

It also had one additional ability — it could freeze the object it was “looking at” in time.

Well, one second of time freeze was equivalent to ten days of life span, though.

I checked my status board, and the remaining days were written here, since I possessed this Eye of Magic.

Skill: Eye of Magic [Lifespan: 3050 days]

I still had around 10 years remaining.

It had decreased a lot, since I’d been using this Eye of Magic.

Still, I could use my remaining lifespan to freeze the warlock for 10 minutes.

“Your Ladyship, I will stop the warlock from moving. Please use that time and run with all your might up to the Holy City.”

The warlock wouldn’t be able to get her as long as she was inside the Holy City. I had to hold on until she reached the Holy City. As long as I had this lifespan, I would be able to win!

“Shin, don’t tell me…”

Holy Knights could never hide anything from the Saint, so she already knew about my Eye of Magic.

She prolly already noticed what I was trying to do.

“The Senior Knights fought with their lives, so there’s no way I will try to preserve mine. I will do my utmost to protect Your Ladyship, no matter the cost! For the sake of the Seniors, please, Seira-sama, please run away!”

I called her name for the first time.

Well, it was the last time, so this much was fine, right?

“Hmpf, I don’t know what you’re planning, but there’s no way you can escape from us, you know.”

“—!?”

He suddenly directed his words behind me, so I spun around in shock. Another warlock was standing there.

As long as I could use my Eye of Magic to observe his mana, then we were on even ground.

Unfortunately, I could only time-freeze one target at a time, and it would take a few seconds to lock my target.

We were doomed.

I could only stop a single warlock at best using my Eye of Magic in exchange for my lifespan, but there were two of them now.

“Sorry for calling you out here. I want to crush this saintess that would become an obstacle to the Demon King that will soon be born.”

“No big deal. We should quickly do away with this guy, especially since he defeated the marionnettes that you were controlling.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

They sandwiched the Saint and I as they started talking to each other.

The Demon King will be revived, this guy said.

We’re going to die here, so their lips are loose, huh.

Well, we didn’t have a means to let the Holy City know, though.

The two warlocks started to gather an enormous amount of mana on their hands. It was visible even without using the Eye of Magic.

The mana turned into balls of spheres above the warlock’s head. They were lumps of malice and death.

“Goodbye, Saint, and you too, noble knight. Your loyalty and spirit are commendable.”

I didn’t want to be praised by a warlock like you.

Why don’t you release us instead, since you’re praising me, right?

The warlocks swung their hands downward.

Death was coming.

At this final moment, I shielded the Saint with my body, just like a proper knight —

How odd.

The sound of an explosion rang in our ears, and I was sure the warlocks’ mana bomb had detonated…

I was still alive.

The Saint, too.

When I opened my eyes, a half-moon dome protected us from the attacks of the warlocks.

I glanced at the Saint, but Her Ladyship shook her head — it wasn’t her barrier.

Besides, even if she was the Saint, she couldn’t block two warlocks’ attacks without the support of the priests.

Then who did —

Actually, I already knew the answer.

Aside from the Saint and I, a raven-haired youth was standing beside us — right inside the barrier.