Chapter 4: Book 1: Chapter Third Rule of Sun Knights: “Even in the Face of Death, One Must Die Gracefully”

Book 1: Chapter Third Rule of Sun Knights: “Even in the Face of Death, One Must Die Gracefully”

I rushed onto the streets like a comet streaking across the skies. By this point, I no longer needed the knight-apprentice as a guide, for that towering aura of death was simply impossible to miss. I had never encountered such an intense aura of death in the city before…

(Don’t tell me that my request for a tougher undead creature has really been answered? That can’t be! I heard from my teacher that because the Church pays very little, the necromancer would, at the very most, only summon a zombie that’s missing various limbs for me to play with.)

There’s a house with a flat roof ahead… I stepped on the wall and used it to propel myself into the air as I jumped onto the roof. Spotting where the holy knights had gathered on the ground, I leapt toward them, crying out in mid-air, “Undead creature which defieth the laws of nature, tainted and malevolent being of the darkness, by the authority of the God of Light, I, the Sun Knight, in the name of the Sun which doth hang in the skies, shalt utterly annihilate thy existence from the face of the earth, for the glory of the beauty of the light!”

“Sun, you’re here at last!” Beneath me, Leaf Knight turned his head to look at me, a relieved expression on his face.

With him were the Storm, Earth, and Ice Knights, each of them leading a few knights from their respective platoons. I quickly saw that there were a total of twenty-something holy knights present; as far as my memory serves me, this seems to be the first time that we’ve mobilized on such a large scale. But then again, I can probably guess at the reason for such a large operation; after all, a death knight isn’t the kind of undead creature you would see often… Hold on a second! A death knight?

Why would such a creature of the darkness – with a success rate of summoning so low that a necromancer would rather take care of an enemy with his or her own hands in order to save time and effort – show up here?

Don’t tell me it lost its way?

Shit!

As the shock was too great, the muscles in my left foot suddenly lost their strength. This led to it bending at the wrong angle and kicking into the muscle at the back of my lower right leg, which in turn caused the angle of my right knee to be incorrect and rendered it unable to direct my thigh to move in such a way as for me to take a step forward… Although it all sounds terribly complicated, simply put, this situation can be summarized as—

I tripped.

And I tripped in midair.

Fortunately, my teacher had put me through both “reasonable training” and “unreasonable drilling”. It’s not that I want to brag, but thanks to those two types of special training for falling down, I can guarantee that even the God of Light can’t fall more gracefully than I do… Although now that I think about it, it’s impossible for the God of Light to ever fall down, so there’s no way we can test that out.

I bent forward reflexively. My arms swept forward in graceful arcs like a ballerina’s to form a circle and I executed two complete forward somersaults, followed by a sideway twist… And I land! Lastly, I raised both arms over my head slowly and lowered them – like a butterfly’s wings – to rest at my side. I gradually regained my breath and then reverted to the Sun Knight’s straight and graceful stance.

Clap clap clap! A round of applause rose from the audience, and one knight was even banging on his shield with his sword, shouting, “Encore! Encore! Fall down once more!”

Screw your “fall down once more”! Why hasn’t the death knight sent this idiot to the God of Light to be re-educated?

“Ten points!” Leaf, being the nice guy that he is, immediately awarded me full marks.

“Hmph! Five points; his footing wasn’t steady enough when he landed.” That damnable Earth! He must still be nursing a grudge against me for interfering in his “business” earlier.

“Eight points; the fall in front of the queen was more graceful.” Storm… Fine, at least you’re honest.

I admit, in order not to disgrace myself in front of the queen that time, I used the “superhuman endurance which I’d gained by surviving for ten years under the guidance of my teacher without developing a warped personality” (whether my personality has become warped or not, I will never admit to it, so we’ll just take it that it hasn’t changed) in order to fall gracefully…and fell down the full three hundred and twenty three steps of the staircase.

Since that time, the temple staircase’s level of detestability has been higher than that of Earth Knight in my mind.

F***ing hell! Are they trying to kill people by building such a long staircase?!

If not for the fact that there were several hundred clerics at the foot of the temple casting thousands of spells on me simultaneously and healing me up instantly, I would have become the first Sun Knight to die from a fall.

Remember what I told you guys before about my teacher saying that “even if the Sun Knight were to fall down, he must still fall down in an extremely graceful fashion”?

When I was old enough to be sent on practice missions by the Church, my teacher – in a grave and well-meaning manner – gave me further instructions, saying, “Child, you are finally going out to carry out missions. As your teacher, I am extremely relieved, but there are some instructions that I must give you before I can truly be at ease.”

“I will definitely be careful, teacher.” I felt extremely moved; my teacher is truly very concerned about me!

“Yes, child, you must be careful! Remember, a Sun Knight must always maintain his graceful demeanor, regardless of time and place.”

I nodded my head obediently. “Teacher, I will complete my mission very gracefully.”

(Back then, I had gone through a lifestyle involving lots of falling down for several months already. On average, I would have to look for a cleric once every three days to cast a high level healing spell on me to cure the wounds I receive from a particularly nasty fall.)

My teacher shook his head and said, “Child, completing the mission gracefully is but the basics.”

“Then what’s more advanced than that?”

“Child, you must remember, when you have failed your mission and are near death, at that time, you must…”

“Pray to the God of Light?”

“No, you must contemplate what sort of pose you will die in, and if that pose will be accompanied by a serene expression or a heroic one. Still more important is the question of whether you will die from a single thrust to the heart from your enemy or if you will slit your own throat, and so on and so forth. Only after all of the important circumstances surrounding your death have been planned out and arranged perfectly can you pass away in as graceful a position as possible!

“Even in the face of death, a Sun Knight must die very gracefully!”

“…”

As such, if I were to die with the cause of death being something as inelegant as “a fall”, it is entirely possible that my teacher would be infuriated to the point of using necromancy to resurrect me as a death knight and then use the holy spells of the God of Light to let me die once more – and in a graceful manner this time round.

“Sun, this death knight is pretty strong. Be careful,” said Leaf Knight. He then retreated several steps, together with Storm Knight and Earth Knight, clearing an area in the center for me and the death knight.

“Isn’t it too risky to leave that undead creature to Knight-Captain Sun to handle alone?” some of the knights at the back exclaimed worriedly.

“Relax, my best friend definitely wouldn’t lose to an undead creature,” Earth Knight said in a “loyal” and “honest” tone.

“Yeah, whenever Sun encounters undead creatures – which he hates the most – he will become several times stronger. You guys had better not interfere and steal his prey, or else he’ll get angry,” Leaf Knight – being the good guy that he is – explained to the knights, and even gave me a smile that said, “Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone interrupt your fight.”

But hold on a second! That’s because the undead creatures that I dealt with in the past were all paid for by the Church and summoned by a necromancer for the purpose of helping me de-stress and to prevent me from getting depression!

Just then, the sword in the death knight’s hand suddenly burst into black flames that reached for several meters around the blade. The death knight opened its half-rotten mouth and gave an inhuman roar…

Very good! Perhaps I can begin to contemplate what pose I should die in and what expression I should have to go along with it, as well as choose my favorite way to die, and then gracefully return to the company of the God of Light…

I was just about to begin my contemplations by deciding what pose to die in when the death knight actually swung its sword – which was spitting black flames all over the place – at me… Quit kidding around with me! How can I possibly die before I’ve properly considered what pose and expression to die with and made sure that I would die as gracefully as possible!

My teacher often said, “It’s okay if you don’t have the talent for it; the most important thing is to practice, practice, and practice. Child, if you continue to fall down for yet another month, you will definitely master the art of doing so gracefully!”

Hence, if I do not die gracefully, my teacher will definitely resurrect me again and again and again, until I’ve died over and over again for an entire month and finally mastered the art of dying gracefully; only then will he allow me to die for good…

As such, I definitely cannot die before I’ve come up with a way to die as gracefully as possible or before I’ve instructed my good friend Judgment Knight to dismember my body thoroughly after I die, so as to make it impossible for my teacher to resurrect me!

“Yargh!” I roared as I unsheathed my sword, and it met the death knight’s flaming weapon with a loud, steely clang.

“As expected of the Sun Knight; such a powerful, forceful blow, it’s definitely something for the undead creature to reckon with,” breathed the holy knights who were watching admiringly from one side.

“Sun! Why didn’t you bring your Divine Sun Sword with you?” Leaf Knight exclaimed in alarm.

Are you nuts?! The Divine Sun Sword is an antique that’s worth enough money to hold a city ransom! Even though right now its blade is still incomparably sharp, who knows when it might break?

It doesn’t matter when it breaks, so long as it doesn’t break in my hands! Otherwise I will never be able to compensate the Church for it, even if I were to hand them all of my retirement savings from hence forth!

Besides, I’d thought that I was just coming to chop up a zombie that’s missing hands and feet, for the purpose of warding off depression. Is there anybody out there would kill a chicken with an enormous cleaver, the kind meant for butchering cows? In the same way, is there anybody out there who would, in order to avoid getting depression, bring along an antique that he or she is constantly worried about, fearing that it would be stolen or, worse still, simply break on its own?

What? I’m worrying over nothing, you say?

Fine! Let’s set aside the question of whether the sword will break or not.

A sword – doesn’t matter if it is the Divine Sun Sword, the XX Holy Sword, the OO Demon Sword, or whatever, so long as it’s a weapon – will become blunt after hacking stuff for a while. When that happens, you’ll have to bring it to the smith to sharpen it.

It costs at most one silver ducat to sharpen a regular sword, and that’s already considered very pricey. However, ordinary smiths do not have the courage to handle something like the Divine Sun Sword that’s worth a city’s ransom. Consequently, to find a smith who dares to touch this antique, I will have to look for the most famous smith in the entire city, which means that the price of sharpening the sword is one gold ducat at the very minimum!

One gold ducat is enough for me to buy an ordinary sword already!

Besides, blades grow thinner as you sharpen them! So if I spend a gold ducat to sharpen the Divine Sun Sword, it will cause the blade to grow thinner, thus increasing the odds of it breaking… I would rather use my teeth to bite enemy monsters to death!

For the sake of the Sun Knight’s graceful image, however, I forked over a gold ducat with quite a bit of heartache and purchased a sword to replace the Divine Sun Sword. After all, it is simply too difficult to bite a monster to death gracefully using my teeth!

Though it sounds like I’ve been muttering to myself in my head for some time now, in reality, the death knight and I have already exchanged over ten blows. There seemed no end to the metallic ringing of our swords as they clashed together time and time again. Each fresh sound of metal on metal would leave my heart aching as though it was about to break. The clashing of swords is a terrifying business; unless one’s weapon is greatly superior to the opponent’s in terms of quality, the sword will be nicked with each exchange. As a sword develops more and more nicks, it must be taken to the smith to be repaired, and repairs cost money as well…

I was sorely tempted to simply use my body to take the blows, and I would have done so were it not for the fact that the death knight’s sword was blazing with black fire and looked positively menacing. After all, the Sanctuary of Light is practically packed to the rafters with clerics who can easily dispense lots of free healing!

I couldn’t help but feel that something was a little odd, however. Is it just me, or is the legendary death knight that’s super-duper difficult to summon nowhere as powerful as I’d imagined it to be?

Or it could be that I’d somehow gotten stronger lately without realizing it… Scrap that! I really shouldn’t delude myself.

Just a few days ago, I was defeated in three moves by Judgment Knight during a practice fight, so even the death knight with its decomposed brain wouldn’t believe me if I say that I’ve gotten stronger!

Or could it be that what I’m seeing is not a death knight, but just a “dead knight” that had been, coincidentally enough, resurrected by the necromancer and turned into a zombie?

I took a good look at this death knight…whoa! Its body has decayed so badly that it’s practically in tatters, and its swordsmanship is absolutely rotten to boot. I’ve really got to say, for me to be able to be this unfocused, with my thoughts wandering off all over the place, and still be able to gain the upper hand, the level of swordsmanship can only be described with the word “rotten”…ahem! I mean, it can be described as “not that great”.

(Don’t be ridiculous; if I say that its swordsmanship is rotten, that would obviously mean that my swordsmanship is rotten as well! I’ll admit that my skill with a sword is not that great, but I would absolutely never admit that my swordsmanship is rotten!)

As such, this undead creature which has not-that-great swordsmanship probably isn’t a death knight, but a dead knight.

Forget it! It doesn’t matter if it’s a “death” knight or a “dead” knight, I only know that if I don’t hurry up and render this fellow utterly and irrevocably dead and unable to swing a sword around soon, I will definitely end up having to spend money yet again on buying a new weapon, which in turn will lead to excessive heartache, and finally, an ungraceful death.

While my swordsmanship isn’t that great, I am very skilled in the holy magic which holy knights specialize in! I can guarantee that one spell from me will send the undead creature straight to its eternal rest. As for why I’d just spent this much time in a protracted battle with it, it is entirely because…

My teacher often said, “Child, even if you encounter the most powerful undead creature ever, you must still remember to have a protracted battle with it before you send it to its eternal rest using your holy magic.”

“Then why not use it from the beginning?” the young me asked uncomprehendingly.

“Think for a moment, child. When the common folk encounter a monster, it would take around ten minutes, during which people would get killed, in order to demonstrate how powerful the monster is. Afterward, they will spend another ten minutes screaming in panic, followed by yet another ten minutes spent running everywhere, fleeing for their lives, and finally, the knights will arrive to save them. As such, if you only spend three seconds sending the monster to its eternal rest and then turn to leave, do you think that would be fair to the audience who spent thirty minutes waiting for your arrival?”

“…Then teacher, how much time must I spend to fight a monster, so as to be fair to the common folk?”

“Child.” My teacher gazed into the distance with a profound look in his eyes as he said, “Fighting is just like a poem, and you are like a bard. Not only does the battle need to have an introduction, development, a turning point, and a conclusion, you must also create tension in the atmosphere from time to time in order to entertain the audience. It would be best if you could let the villain thrash you to the point where you’re gracefully lying on the ground. If the opponent is a villain of some standard, he will, at this point, mock, taunt, and throw insults at you in order to show off his own power. After that, you will ignite and set ablaze your inner universe…”

“…Inner universe?”

“…Errr, ignite your potential and set ablaze your holy magic, and then gracefully thrash your opponent until he’s lying on the floor, and then send him to his eternal rest. Now that would be a flawlessly executed battle.”

…That just sounds like a very tiring battle.

From that time onward, I harbored an incomparable hatred for missions that required fighting, since the amount of effort they required was comparable to the effort required to gracefully fall down a flight of stairs with over three hundred steps. Consequently, unless it’s an undead creature that I had specially ordered from the necromancer in order to prevent me from getting depression, I would routinely toss the missions into Judgment Knight’s lap. After all, that guy usually needs just one blow to cleanly finish off the enemy.

That is also the reason why Judgment Knight’s fights don’t usually have much of an audience – because his fights are simply too boring.

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Suddenly, all the people present bellowed, “Sun, be careful!”

“Eh?”

I was so surprised by their bellowing that I froze; a second later, pain blazed across my back. Before I could even see which bastard attacked me from behind, Leaf had already rushed over and dispatched the “dead knight” to his eternal rest with a single burst of holy magic. Leaf then turned to examine my back anxiously, and I even heard the hiss of his breath faintly as he gasped.

It’s not that serious a wound, I hope? Nervous, I turned my head to take a look, but I still couldn’t see my own back even though my neck felt like it was about the snap from all that twisting.

What I did see, however, was Earth setting up his ultimate skill – the Shield of Earth – at my back. Although I still really detest that fellow, I must admit that my favorite spot is behind his shield, especially when the enemy is so powerful.

Ice Knight stood across from someone else, his Divine Ice Sword – which really looks just like an icicle – in hand and a furrow between his eyebrows. Judging from the fact that there was actually an expression on Ice Knight’s face, this enemy must be extremely powerful, powerful enough to make a furrow appear between Ice’s eyebrows.

“Sun, does it hurt?” Leaf asked me apprehensively.

I shook my head. This little bit of pain is nothing to me! I am the Sun Knight who has survived my teacher’s special training that involves falling down for several months straight, the Sun Knight who can continue to smile brilliantly even when falling down a staircase with three-hundred something steps!

“It really doesn’t hurt?” Leaf sounded extremely alarmed.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Damn Leaf! Why did you have to force me to speak?! I replied, “The sunshine which the God of Light gently showers upon us has made the small amount of pain vanish without a trace.”

“Sun really is amazing,” Leaf muttered to himself. “To be this wounded and still call it just a ‘small amount of pain’…”

I paid no more attention to Leaf, my interest piqued by the fellow who had sudden appeared. His appearance was really very weird. At first glance he looked like an ordinary person, but a second, more careful look convinced me that this fellow was definitely not a human!

After all, there isn’t a type of human that’s “discolored”, is there?

This fellow’s hair was a discolored sort of brown; his skin, a discolored sort of beige. Even the knight’s armor that he was wearing was a discolored sort of silver. Basically, he was grayish-white in color from head to toe, looking for all the world like a person who hadn’t moved for several centuries and had, as a result, accumulated a thick layer of dust on his body.

From my words, it may sound as though this guy could just be a lazy person who hasn’t bathed for several years and hence accumulated too much dust on his body. I am still absolutely certain, however, that this fellow is not a human!

The reason is because there were no eyeballs in his sockets. Instead, in their place blazed two grayish-white fires!

What the heck! Production standards must be really sloppy these days if even fires can be discolored.

The sword in that fellow’s hands was probably the only thing that wasn’t discolored. Its design was austere to the point where it was completely unadorned. Light glinted coldly off its extremely sharp edge, suggesting that it wasn’t a blade to be trifled with.

Fortunately, the Divine Ice Sword in our Ice Knight’s hands was the real deal as well. Although it might look just like a popsicle that’s been filed to a point, a popsicle is nowhere near as sharp as it!

Besides, Ice Knight is famous for his excellent swordsmanship. I suspect that his combat ability would still be higher than mine, even if he were to really fight using a popsicle…

Ahem!

Ice’s fighting style is passive in nature; that is to say, he can stand still for a whole day with his sword in hand. This will continue until the opponent can no longer stand it and comes lunging at Ice with his weapon raised. At this point Ice will – with a single, fatal thrust – finish off his opponent.

As such, Ice’s fights are the type which nobody wants to watch, since there’s nothing interesting about them.

It was no exception this time either. The discolored fellow clearly did not have the patience to remain locked in a face-off for an entire day. Barely a few minutes passed before he raised his weapon and came charging at Ice. He was also alarmingly fast – hardly a second went by from the moment he first moved, but that fellow had almost reached Ice already. It didn’t look at all like he’d moved, but had simply disappeared from where he stood, and then rematerialized right in front of Ice!

With such speed, it’s no surprise that he could actually land an attack on me before the very eyes of Earth Knight, who, of all the Twelve Holy Knights, specializes in maintaining a protective shield… I’d nearly thought that it was Earth deliberately letting me get chopped as revenge for what happened earlier.

Fortunately, Ice Knight’s concentration is genuinely first-rate. Although the discolored fellow was really fast, Ice still managed to raise his popsicle…I mean, raise his Divine Ice Sword to block the attack in time.

However, it was clearly impossible for even Ice Knight to finish off the enemy quickly this time. Instead, he began to exchange a flurry of blows and parries with the opponent, and both parties were frighteningly fast. I took a more careful look and saw that Ice was actually slowly being forced back.

I watched eagerly and gleefully from the sidelines…ahem! I mean, I anxiously watched the fight between my companion and the enemy, and was struck by a sudden realization. A powerful knight with a discolored appearance, emitting a towering aura of death… a death knight?!

Whoaaa! Looks like we’ve finally met the main antagonist.

“Sun, do you want to heal up first?” Leaf asked from behind me in a rather worried voice.

“Sun is fine.” I’m having fun watching the fight! It’s a rare chance to see Ice exchanging this many blows with the enemy; we can leave the healing till later.

Happy as I might have been with just watching the fight, it was evident that Ice was having a slightly difficult time. I think I really should give him a hand; after all, he did help me to fend off the enemy. Otherwise, if Ice were to be defeated, since Earth specializes in defense and Leaf is a long-range attacker, wouldn’t that mean that I would have to fight?

If that happens, there’s an eighty percent chance that the floor would be covered in my blood by the first exchange, and that my head would be on the floor by the third.

“Ice, let me assist you!” I shouted loudly. I wasn’t worried that Ice might be distracted since Ice’s concentration was the strongest out of all the Twelve Holy Knights to begin with.

Since I am the Sun Knight who deeply abhors undead creatures, a majority of the spells that I had learned since I was young were specifically meant for dealing with such things. Let’s take for instance the spell “Holy Blessing”; with it, I can bless any object, infusing it with holy power for a short while, thus making it several times more deadly to undead creatures.

I had originally intended to cast Holy Blessing on Ice’s popsicle, but after a while, I realized that there was a huge problem, as that popsicle was simply moving too fast for me to lock on to!

Oh, forget it, I’ll just exert a bit more energy and infuse Ice himself with holy power!

“The almighty God of Light showers the world with dazzling sunlight, cleansing it of shadows and evil…” (The rest has been omitted for brevity’s sake.) After reciting a long string of words praising the God of Light, just as the death knight managed to inflict several wounds on Ice’s body, I finally pronounced the most important phrase.

“Holy Blessing!”

Within a moment, Ice’s body was enveloped by a golden light, making him look just like a candle flame. Not only does this light have the effect of increasing the damage done to undead creatures, it also has another very useful effect: it can make it difficult for the opponent to see where they should attack, even if the opponent isn’t an undead creature!

“Bless me as well, Sun.”

Even the nice guy, Leaf, was angry at last. He was probably provoked by the sight of Ice getting wounded. He stood next to me with a stern look on his face, and he held in his hands… Haha! You must be thinking that it’s the Divine Leaf Sword. Let me tell you, you’re wrong!

It’s the Divine Leaf Bow!

As I was too lazy to recite all those words praising the God of Light yet another time, I simply raised my hand and grabbed the arrowhead of the arrow which Leaf had nocked. The edge pierced my palm, and I let go of it, leaving an arrowhead that was fully coated with my blood.

As the spokesperson for the God of Light, my blood has perpetually been blessed with holy power, rendering it simply poisonous to undead creatures!

Leaf looked moved as he said, “Sun, I will not waste the blood which you have contributed.”

As for Ice, now that I had enveloped him in holy light, the death knight was clearly extremely wary of the holy light that was hindering his attacks. Ice, who was originally losing, was now fighting on an equal footing with the death knight.

However, there was still another person on our side – Leaf – who was watching the fight intently, waiting for the moment to strike. He raised his bow with a sharp glint in his eyes, as though he could bore holes in the enemy just by looking.

I forgot to mention to everyone that when Leaf Knight raises his bow, he immediately changes from “a really nice guy” to “a really terrifying guy”. He can fire five arrows within ten seconds, and all of them would hit the bull’s eye.

That’s not nearly as impressive, however, as the fact that he can run, jump, sing a song, turn his head to look at a hot babe, and at the same time, turn the enemy into a hedgehog with his arrows.

Basically, I would choose taking up my sword and fighting the death knight any day over having to fight Leaf when he’s armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows. With the former, even if I can’t win, I can still flee from the fight. With the latter…how does a person outrun an arrow?!

Next to me, the arrow left Leaf’s bowstring with a “fwish”. His timing was perfect – the death knight was dodging Ice’s attack at that very moment, leaving him with no way to evade this arrow that came out of nowhere and no alternative but to take the arrow in his chest. Now, a normal arrow can deal only little or no damage at all to a death knight, since the latter is already dead. However, it is a completely different matter when the arrow has my blood on it.

A sizzling sound just like the sound of a fish frying on a pan could be heard from the death knight’s chest, and then a large chunk of his chest vanished, leaving behind a deep hole. There was no blood, however, only a sticky, grayish-black liquid that slowly oozed out.

Ice made use of the opportunity and hacked at the death knight’s left arm, and the latter let out an inhuman bellow. Ice’s attack had almost completely cut off the death knight’s limb, and it was now hanging by a strip of flesh from his body.

The death knight retreated within the blink of an eye. Such a quick movement was not something that Ice could catch up with. However, there’s still Leaf on our side!

Not even a death knight can outrun an arrow!

With a “fwish fwish fwish”, Leaf fired three arrows in rapid succession, but this time the death knight evaded them pretty quickly and actually managed to dodge two of the arrows. The only arrow which found its mark did not have my blood on it, however, so the damage it dealt was so minimal that the death knight couldn’t even be bothered with pulling it out.

I gave a faint smile and once again wrapped my hand about the arrowhead just before Leaf fired. After a moment of thought, however, it struck me that this wasn’t a foolproof method since the arrow might not hit the target, and so I simply raised my bloody hand over Leaf’s quiver and let my blood to drip onto all the arrows at once.

Leaf didn’t fail me, and began to fire arrows nonstop. Although the death knight managed to dodge a number of them, quite a few arrows still managed to find their mark, and each one elicited a howl of pain from the death knight.

“Crap! He’s running away,” Leaf exclaimed in alarm, and stepped up the speed at which he was firing arrows. He was so fast that I could only see a fan-shaped blur, followed by the sound of his bowstring being released as he fired a steady stream of arrows. Leaf sure lives up to his reputation as the archery specialist among the Twelve Holy Knights!

Forget about counter-attacking; by this point, the death knight had his hands full trying to dodge the rain of arrows, and was running further and further away…

“I will come back and find you one day, Sun Knight!”

Just like every other villain who has fled, the grayish-white death knight threw out a sentence threatening the protagonist just before he disappeared as a speck in the distance…wait, the one he threatened was the Sun Knight…me?

Wait, wait a moment, what are you looking at me for? The one whom you were fighting with wasn’t me!

As the saying goes, “vengeance must have a source, a debt must have a debtor”; all I did was to cast a bit of shiny holy light on Ice and coat a bit of poisonous blood on Leaf’s arrows while I was at it! Ultimately, the ones who you fought against were the two of them, not me!

I really want to cry… This time, not only did I get hacked at, I’d even managed to earn the enmity of a real death knight; what on earth did I do to deserve this?!

Just then, Ice Knight sheathed his sword, and Earth Knight put away his shield as well. The two of them turned around with extremely grim looks on their face, but for some reason both of them froze as soon as they caught sight of me.

“Sun, you…do you need help?” Earth asked, with a look on his face which seemed to suggest that he’d just seen a ghost.

I shook my head emphatically. Why does everyone seem to think that I need help?

Ice didn’t say a word, but his gaze traveled down from my face to the floor and back up, and surprisingly enough, his expression kind of looked like he was spacing out. Curious, I followed his gaze and looked down at the floor.

WHOA! Since when did the whole floor become covered in blood? This sea of red does look pretty awe-inspiring…

Wait a second! Why have my white knight’s pants turned red?

“Sun… Are you really alright?” Leaf’s voice was so urgent that he seemed like he was about to cry.

The blood on the floor…is mine?

“Leaf…” I said, only to discover that my voice was so weak that it was about as loud as a mosquito’s buzzing.

“Huh?” Leaf drew closer hurriedly, probably because my voice was simply too soft for him to hear.

“Give me a hand…”

“Sun!”

And then…

…in a very graceful fashion, I…

…fainted.

[Sun Knight Volume 1 Chapter 3 End]

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