Knight and Wand

Chapter 4 Partner
where is this?
Leon looked at the towering dome above his head.

He was in a palace with gorgeous decorations, exquisite carvings and tapestries on the pillars and walls, but when he looked further away, the vague white mist that could not be dispelled rejected his sight.

An unknown impulse made him look forward again. There was a staircase leading to a higher place between the halls. At the end of the stairs stood a solemn throne.

Leon slowly raised his feet and walked up the stairs one step at a time.

After walking for a long time, the throne was still out of reach.

"This is not the place to be. Let's go back."

The voice is very familiar.

Darkness soon followed.

When he woke up in a daze, all Leon saw was a bumpy rock wall. The shadows cast by the firelight shaking in the wind danced on the stone wall.

This seemed to be a natural cave in the crevice of the mountain. He could hear the sound of wind and rain outside the cave, and he was briefly dazed.

Traveled through time again? Leon was stunned for a moment, but as the confusion from sleep gradually faded away, he remembered everything that had happened before.

Remembering that after the flash of light shot out from his hand seriously injured the mercenary, he unexpectedly lost strength all over his body and lost consciousness. Now Leon moved his slightly stiff neck and turned his head to look to his side.

The figure of his companion appeared in his field of vision, which made him feel a little relieved.

Next to him was a simple bonfire surrounded by stones. Azerien was lying on the ground not far from him, sleeping soundly with his shield as his head resting on his head and a long dagger in its sheath in his hand.

At the entrance of the cave, the bare-chested person wearing chain mail was Lohak. He wore an iron helmet and was holding the one-handed sword that once belonged to the dead mercenary. He was looking out at the pouring rain outside the cave with thunder and lightning. He must be on guard duty.

It was raining heavily outside. Leon didn't know the time. He just looked at the dark sky outside and guessed that it might be night.

I supported myself on the ground and sat up straight. Although I still felt a little tired, at least my body was fine.

Hearing the noise, Lohak looked over and saw that his most worried companion had finally woken up. He immediately breathed a sigh of relief: "You're awake."

"How long have I been unconscious? Where am I?" Leon sat up cross-legged and took off the thick armor shirt that someone had covered him with. He raised his hands to rub his temples to relieve the dizziness. Without the shackles on his hands, he felt extremely comfortable when he moved. It felt so good to be free.

"You slept for almost the whole day. As for this place, you are not asking about this small cave, right? Azerien said that we should be in Mamor County of Kantadar now." Lohak looked at another companion who was sleeping soundly beside the fire and replied.

Mamor County? Well, it was the same as not asking. The original owner of Leon's body had never left his hometown since birth. Not to mention the geographical knowledge of the enemy country, Kantadar, even if he was still in the territory of the Kingdom of Serian, he knew nothing about the location of other areas except the road from the settlement where he lived to the Holy Land City.

Oh. It's not that I have no idea. At least, I know that the Kingdom of Kantadar that launched the invasion is to the west of the Kingdom of Serian. I seem to remember hearing from merchants who traveled all over the country that there is a more powerful Kingdom of Orland in the north, but that country has a good relationship with the Kingdom of Serian, unlike Kantadar where the relationship is tense.

"Is there any water and food?" Leon asked.

"Yes, there is still some food left." Lohak said, standing up, taking out a kettle and dry bread from the rag package beside him and handing them over.

Obviously these things originally belonged to the Kantadar mercenary they killed.

"What happened after I fainted?" Leon asked Lohak while eating.

".We killed that guy, then stripped him naked and dragged him into the woods and buried him." Lohak briefly recounted what happened after Leon fell into a coma.

"You handled it cleanly and didn't throw the body on the road. The mud was a trampled path covered with footprints and horseshoe prints. It should be a route often taken by mercenaries. If the body was found too early, someone might look for us." Leon nodded.

"Uh, ahem, it was mainly Azerien who suggested it. I'm not that smart." Lohak scratched his head and said awkwardly.

To be honest, he just wanted to carry Leon away as quickly as possible, but he didn't expect that Azerian not only didn't leave in a hurry, but even simply turned over the blood-stained mud and covered it with soil.

Eager to leave as soon as possible, he had a little argument with Azerien. After all, without the right tools, it was very difficult to dig a hole to bury the body. "Thank you for not abandoning me as a burden." Leon thanked with gratitude.

"No way. It's your credit that we are alive. How could I abandon you and run away alone?" Lohak shook his head and thought of the other party's miraculous performance that day. He still finds it unbelievable.

The boy's eyes sparkled with curiosity, and he asked Leon tentatively, "Come to think of it, what did you do that day? All of a sudden, I saw a flash of light that broke the hand of that bastard Kantadar."

He stuttered for a moment. The boy, who had a limited vocabulary, didn't know how to describe the light arrow he saw. He could only raise the missing chain mail sleeve on his right arm and exclaimed, "Too powerful! You even penetrated the armor. Is this witchcraft?"

Leon smiled bitterly and shrugged: "I don't know how to explain it to you. I heard a voice. Just think of it as a miracle blessed by God. After all, I'm not sure if it can happen again."

He remembered that the mysterious voice said there was only one chance. Although Leon didn't know how the spell worked, he didn't think that he could really recreate the arrow of light out of thin air with just a simple hand gesture.

Thinking of the sudden pain of the blood boiling in his body when he released the light arrow, Leon thought that at best he was just acting as a "launch pad" and he was not the one who actually released the spell.

But recalling it, the power of the glowing arrow did leave a deep impression on him. With one arrow, the mercenary's arm, chain mail and thick armor lining were completely severed. Perhaps some ordinary caliber bullets in his previous life would not have been able to sever a limb so easily and cleanly with one strike.

However, the price was also beyond his expectations. Leon did not expect that releasing the light arrow would cause him to faint.

He looked at the heavy rain outside the cave with flashes of lightning. If the two young men were cruel enough to just run away and leave him unconscious in the woods to his fate, then even if he was not caught by the mercenaries, he would likely become a gift from nature to the mouths of wild beasts during his coma, or simply die of hypothermia in the pouring rain.

"Miracle? Voice?" Lohak was stunned and did not ask further. Such a power beyond cognition was difficult to understand. Since his companions attributed it to a miracle, he could only believe that it was the appearance of Saint Sol and the Holy Prophet. "Ilaril, it seems that the great Holy Sun has not abandoned us. If you can return to Serian in the future, Leon, you may be able to become a priest of the church."

After regarding the power that saved them as the blessing of faith, the boy felt excited for the first time in a long time.

After hearing what the young man said, Leon felt relieved and didn't explain any more. As a modern soul, he naturally couldn't say what his attitude was towards the Holy Sun and Holy Prophet beliefs of the Serrian Kingdom, but it was indeed a fact that he was saved by an incomprehensible force.

He was grateful for the mysterious voice that had not received a response for the time being. What's more, what if it was really a manifestation of gods? After all, even such an absurd thing as time travel had happened to him, and it was hard to say whether there were real gods in this strange world.

"Do you have any idea what to do next?" Leon asked Lohak in front of him, swallowing the dry bread crumbs that were only slightly easier to eat than what he ate in the cage with water.

"I want to save my sister." Lohak said firmly without hesitation.

"Are you going to find her now?" Leon felt helpless about the boy's recklessness.

"Of course! I can't let her fall into the hands of those bastards in Kantadar. Those bastards who deserve to go to hell are not human beings at all! What if my sister is..." Lohak's eyes suddenly turned red. He couldn't stop recalling his family members who were brutally slaughtered by cruel mercenaries on the day the city was captured. His voice became more and more gritted.

"Then do you know where she is?" Leon asked back, "How are you going to find her if you don't know where she is and have no place to stay?"

"This, I..." Lohak's brows gradually frowned, not knowing how to answer.

"Okay brother, let me change the question. Do you speak the language used by the Kantadar people?" Leon asked very realistically.

Lohak opened his mouth but no sound came out. He looked unwilling and at a loss.

"I understand how you feel." Leon sighed sympathetically. It was not an easy thing to say. After all, he also had deep memories of the tragic death of the original owner's parents. However, the power of hatred and anger would be meaningless if it was not released in the right direction.

"We are still in enemy territory. Neither you nor I know the Kantardar language, and we can't pretend to be locals. Once we come into contact with outsiders, we may be arrested by the soldiers and thrown into prison again, or even punished." Leon glanced at Lohak's tense expression and sighed, "Besides, even if you know where your sister was sold to, you can't save her by yourself. The person who bought your sister doesn't look like a civilian. I can't help you even if I want to."

"He's right." Another voice suddenly interrupted.

Leon and Lohak looked towards Azerien who was sitting by the campfire. The fair-skinned boy had already been woken up by the conversation between the two.

Azerien stretched his stiff shoulders and continued to say to Lohak, "The man who bought your sister is a noble from the Kingdom of Kantardar. Judging from the emblem on his robe, he is at least a knight. If you go to him to steal her now, you will only die in vain."

Restraining his anger, Lohak clenched his fists and lowered his head, hating his own weakness and powerlessness. Indeed, going alone to cause trouble for a noble from an enemy country was a reckless act that would only lead to his own death.

(End of this chapter)