The Holy Man of Another Century Gospel

Chapter 39 Hero Avenue
In the afternoon, the carriage left the city of Orei from the east gate and entered the relatively desolate wilderness.

This is the main road connecting to other cities. It is much smoother than the country road leading to the small town of Valais. Even an ordinary carriage will not shake too much when running on it.

After a while, the carriage entered the wider Hero Avenue and its speed increased significantly.

"To get rich, you really have to build roads first..." Eric leaned back in the car, squinting ahead. The road was long, stretching out as far as he could see, seemingly endless, just like the highway in his previous life.

The Hero's Highway, a military highway constructed after the Hero King Utu established his capital in Lutia, radiated outward from Lutia, connecting dozens of provinces in the east, west, south, and north, firmly controlling each region within the imperial power center—of course, in the early days of the empire. Today, these paved roads continue to steadily serve their role in transportation, but the Delan Empire has declined.

As early as when they left the city, Eric had already gotten out of the carriage and moved to the seat next to the driver - he really couldn't stand the increasingly loud snoring, and it was difficult to wake them up, so he had to kick himself out.

The view outside is also better, so just take it for a ride.

"What did the young master say just now?" The driver was a little nervous. He didn't hear what he said clearly, and was worried about making mistakes. After a while, he couldn't help but ask.

"Hmm? ...I thought this Heroes' Avenue has a long history." Eric adjusted his sitting position. "It must be five hundred years old."

"Five hundred years... yes, yes. It's been at least five hundred years..." The driver still looked a little nervous.

Eric glanced at him and it was understandable. After all, it was rare for a noble to sit in the passenger seat of a carriage, so it was normal for the coachman to be nervous.

"Don't worry about me, just focus on driving."

"Yes, Master..."

Eric stopped talking and looked at the other carriage in front.

The hanging curtains swayed from time to time, seemingly due to the wind, but the vague sight through the gaps showed that the situation was not that simple.

"..."

Sophie drew back her head and closed the curtain.

Did he see her?
Not sure, take another look.

He seemed to really see her.

...Take another look.

Sophie slowly tugged at the swaying curtain again, opening it a little.

"...Sophie." She was so sneaky that Alena couldn't stand it anymore.

Sophie shuddered and slowly turned her head to look at her. "Head Sister... Mr. Eric has sat next to the coachman."

"I know. You just told me that."

The head nun stared at him, and Sophie sat back down. "Is he bored?"

"Maybe." Alena didn't want to divert her attention to such trivial matters - the many things that had happened during this period had made her almost unable to think.

How could such a simple matter as delivering a token of love encounter so many unexpected events and develop into the current situation... How much responsibility does she need to bear in this?

Sophie stared behind the curtain, lost in thought for a moment, and when she turned back one day, she finally noticed the head nun's absent-mindedness and unconcealable anxiety—her hands were almost twisted into a ball on her knees.

She has been in this state since she received the letter from the saint.

"Sister, are you still worried that the Saint will blame you?"

"..."

Alena took a deep breath and shook her head.

"We didn't do anything wrong," Sophie blurted out, then slowly lowered her voice and looked at her unsurely. "We didn't do anything wrong, did we...?"

"No." Alena gave her an affirmative answer, which was also a comfort to herself.

Looking back on all the choices she made from the day of the ceremony until now, her judgment and actions were impeccable, not to mention Sophie who just followed her.

But she still couldn't calm down.

She was afraid of making mistakes, or being pointed out for her mistakes by someone.

"Teacher Dania..." Sophie looked up at the head nun, who had her hands clasped together, her eyes lowered, and her lips tightly closed, as if the murmur just now was just an illusion.

Sophie also chose to remain silent and did not speak.

She had always known that Sister Alena had a teacher whom she cared about very much, who seemed to be a nun, but she had never seen her and had never heard other nuns in the convent mention her.

What kind of person is Sister Dania?
The head nun was in no mood to chat, and she couldn't secretly look at the people in the carriage behind. Sophie fell into boredom and had to look out the window. She soon realized something.

——According to what she heard when she set out, it seemed that they would have to stay in the carriage for the next seven or eight days until they returned to the Holy City.

"..."

The little nun shrank her shoulders unconsciously, her eyes fixed a little.

You know, although they didn't go sightseeing when they came here, they were not in such a hurry. They stayed when they should and traveled when they should, so it took them a month to get here.

Do we have to rush back to the Holy City within seven or eight days... The letter from the Saint didn't urge us so urgently, did we?

Sophie was clinging to the car window in a daze when her body suddenly shifted. She was caught off guard and fell towards the front of the car.

Alena, who was sitting opposite, almost fell down.

"What's going on..." Sophie was helped up by Alena, who had already made some judgment.

The carriage suddenly stopped.

Alena leaned out of the window and saw a person lying on the road ahead, motionless. She didn't know whether he was hit by their carriage or had been lying there for a long time.

"What's going on?" She turned her head, and the carriage behind her stopped. Eric jumped out and walked over.

"Master..." The driver stared, his face pale, and he was still frightened. "This man was walking and suddenly fell down... He almost hit me."

Eric walked over and looked down. There was a ragged old man lying on the ground, and he seemed to be dead.

Seeing that the old man was so skinny, Eric touched his chest and found that he still had a weak heartbeat.

"He must be a refugee." Eric looked up and saw Alena got off the carriage. He said to her, "It looks like he fainted from hunger."

Alena nodded, squatted down, held the pendant on her chest, and silently chanted the magic of healing.

A light green light emerged from her fingertips and flowed into the old man's body. The latter's ugly expression gradually returned to normal. After a while, he slowly opened his eyes and looked at the people in front of him blankly.

Eric took some dried meat and a bag of water from the car and gave it to him. He had no intention of stopping and said, "Keep going."

The carriage was back on the road, and Eric got into the carriage of the two nuns - the passenger seat next to the coachman.

"Where is that old man going?" Sophie asked, watching him through the small window.

Eric looked ahead and shook his head. "He probably wandered here from Fribourg. There was a famine there, and he didn't know where to go. He could only take things as they came... Maybe death is also a kind of destination."

"How pitiful..." Sophie turned around and could only see the soft curtains hanging in the carriage.

"We can only be thankful it's not winter now," Alena whispered, "otherwise a snowstorm would have kept most of the refugees from waking up."

Sophie looked at her in confusion. "Even if you don't have fire crystals to keep you warm when it snows, you can still burn something to keep warm. Can you really freeze to death?"

"..."

Alena looked up wordlessly, just in time to meet Eric's gaze looking back at her. Both of them had the same expression on their faces.

"Freezing to death, I've seen it happen before. There's not that much to burn." Alena said, her eyes dropping again. "If I hadn't been lucky, I would have frozen to death long ago."

Sophie opened her eyes wide, looking a bit disbelieving.

Eric's voice echoed in her head: "Just as the heroes of the past have long since passed away, the empire today has lost the glory it had when this Heroes' Avenue was built. To be more precise, it is now in tatters."

Even if there is no invasion by demons, the collapse of the building is inevitable and will not be far away.

Eric looked at the vast road ahead.

Just trying to escape the tragic fate of himself and his sister has already made him exhausted. Does he still have the energy to save this empire built by his ancestors?
In other words, is this declining empire still worth saving?
(End of this chapter)