Holy Knight Jerea (1)

"Waaaahhhh…!"

"Long live Lord Jerea!"

"Long live King Lionheart…!"

Amidst the cheers of the soldiers, Leon approached the battlefield that had been devastated by the 'Purple Mist'.

Naturally, to escort the king, the knights followed, as well as Jae-hyuk and Soo-ho.

"Gulp…!"

The two swallowed dryly as they surveyed the battlefield in front of them.

An overwhelming victory.

No, it's not a matter of a victory or a great victory.

There is no battle at all. It's a one-sided slaughter.

Only 30 minutes after Holy Knight Jerea's departure. The orc camp in front of the canyon has been transformed into a hellhole.

"In half an hour…over a thousand dead."

"This…Holy Knight. It's not the first time I've seen one...."

This is not the first time the two have seen a Holy Knight power. At the Jeju Island Gate, they witnessed the Holy Knight of Earth and Abundance, Majestic Georgic.

A creature of supernatural power, the pinnacle of earthly existence.

Living saints, transcendents chosen by the gods.

One of them, an old Holy Knight, straightened his mustache and armor, took a piece of cloth and knelt down to offer it. It was the neck of Krakan.

"I offer this honor to the Goddess of Death and the Lionheart King."

The chosen one, the strongest of all Holy Knights Leon Dragonia Lionheart, Grail Keeper and the pinnacle of his profession gladly took the offerings in his hands.

"What a foul, foul thing."

Krakan's head exploded in Leon's grasp and a knight wiped his hands of the filthy blood.

"You did it quite spectacularly, Sir Jerea."

"I was hoping to draw their attention to their spirits, but...."

"Patient for green beasts."

Leon felt the eyes on him. He'd backed away from the mist of death, but the orcs were still close, and he didn't mind that their fierce gazes were on him and Jerea.

If anything, the Orc Butcher's aura emanating from Leon frightened them.

"If he's unmoved by this much provocation, he must have a boss with quite a bit of charisma."

"In that case… could it be that the Great Chieftain has emerged?"

"Maybe."

Leon searched his memory for the past. "Two hundred years ago… at this gate, two years after the summoning of the Chaos Lord by the Empire, the orcs of the world rallied."

The orcs were on no one's side in that great war, for it was the orcs who smashed humans and demons alike.

'But they were quite organized. Is there an Orc champion, chosen by the Orc gods?'

There were some.

A leader chosen by the orc gods to unite all the orcs and start that great war.

The orcs who joined the war against the Evil Ones fought on the opposite side of the battlefield from their own. He heard that the great empire ruled by the Sky King, the great power of the East, fell at the hands of the orcs.

He eventually clashed with the same orcs that brought down the Sky King's empire, dealing with the evildoers, but he didn't see any great chieftains among them.

Perhaps there was infighting among them, or perhaps-

"It's too early to tell."

Leon turned his horse's head. Ignoring the stares he felt from within the main camp of orcs and beast gods.

* * * *

In a barracks in the canyon, with soldiers standing guard and watching the orcs' movements, Leon approached the tent of Jerea, the commander of the holy relic convoy.

"Welcome, Your Majesty, and I apologize for bringing you here in such squalor."

"I am not young enough to be slumped on the battlefield."

"Haha, how dare anyone dismiss your Majesty as young?"

Leon appeared to be a young man in his mid-twenties at most. But as a Holy Knight, his body would be reconstructed to his prime.

While Leon had become a Holy Knight at a very young age, it was not uncommon for other Holy Knights to be around the same age or in their thirties.

Leon is 96 years old by today's standards, so he's not the oldest Holy Knight, but he's also not the youngest.

Jerea, the grandfatherly man in front of him, is 158 years old, which puts him in the middle of the pack.

"And you… you're still the same."

Leon looked at the aging Holy Knight.

A man who had traveled to all continents in his 70 years of training.

As the oldest Holy Knight, he looked like a gentle old man, even in his prime.

"I saw you not so long ago, when you were crowned king, but you look so longingly into my eyes. You must be desolate in your old age."

"I am not."

Leon had lost countless comrades and friends in the Great War against the Demons.

Among them were his most trusted Holy Knights, who had ascended first and left him behind, but some Holy Knights did not even see the ascension.

One of them was Jerea, right in front of him.

It weighed heavily on Leon's mind that he had not been able to perform the ascension ritual as the Lionheart King for the Holy Knights that accompanied each as they ascended.

He was an ugly king who had failed to honor the Holy Knights' farewells.

"Lord Jerea. There is something I need to tell you."

"I will listen."

Slowly, Leon began to tell him the truth of this world.

That he had fought demons for two hundred years, and that the world had been destroyed.

That he had founded a new pantheon on Earth, and that it too was being invaded by demons.

That he opened the gates to this place…among other things....

"You have already ascended. I met you in the paradise of the gods."

That Jerea had already died and ascended to the Paradise of the Gods.

"...."

Jerea was speechless from all the shocking news.

Anyone would be. That he was already dead, that the world had ended, that he was merely reliving a moment in history.

There was nothing shocking about it, nothing to deny but not this old knight.

"I'm sorry."

Jerea rose from his seat and fell to his knees.

"How can you be sorry? Get up!"

Leon hastily helped him to his feet, but Jerea swallowed his bitterness and poured out his grief.

"How thou hast borne that long fight…alone. Do not forgive this disloyal knight."

Jerea was only sorry that he had not fought with the king to the end.

As he helped him to his feet with this confession of guilt, he heard his future and was convinced.

"If I had died at the hands of the orcs…the rise of an orc overlord would be a virtual certainty."

"That would be true. There will be a champion on this battlefield, chosen by one of the orc gods."

Orcs are spread across the continents, across the world, but from time to time a great chieftain emerges who unites several orc tribes.

Those who can unite as few as five or as many as ten orc tribes rise to the position of Great Chieftain.

In an Orc society where the strongest are the bosses, the only Orcs with such power are the Orc Champions, who are favored by the Orc gods.

Since ancient times, the rise of an Orc Champion has meant a great war.

Leon himself had fought in two such wars, earning the honorary title of "Greatest Orc Slayer."

"So, Your Majesty, what is it that you wish to accomplish here?"

"Fundamentally, one thing."

Experimenting with gates. Getting loot from the system's quests is secondary.

"But when I came through this gate, there was another thing."

"????"

Leon flashed a rare smile at his burly comrade-in-arms.

"This time I want to be with my friend to the end."

* * * *

The story of the clueless Jerea was well known to Leon.

When Leon was only twenty-seven years old and preparing to go to war with the orcs as a Holy Knight and War Knight, he saw an attendant knight who rode up on horseback to join him in this war.

"Tell me your name, my lord."

"My name is Jerea, second son of Baron Bertum, and I served in the Knights of Riona Sunset."

An 87 year old paladin who was aging slowly, even for a Lionheart. From what he had heard, it was already fifty years ago that he had served in the Order as a Kingdom Knight.

Leon was quick to reject the old attendant knight's participation.

"Sir Jerea. This orc crusade is a war against an orc champion. It may be too dangerous for you to go."

He spoke quickly, but in the end, he meant to send him back. Many knights might take it as an insult, or they might take it as consideration.

Regardless of how he took it, Leon had no intention of sending him into battle.

His knowledge and experience on Earth hadn't completely faded, and an old man in his eighties was hardly the age to be sent into battle.

Except for super-powered creatures like the Holy Knights, even knights were only human in the end.

"Honorable Holy Knight of Light and Justice, please give me the last seat. I don't care if I have to mix with commoner horsemen or carry a pike among the Man-At-Arms."

It was a great insult to the knight. Heavy armored knights, who were supposed to fight for glory with honor, would fight among light cavalry and common infantry?

It meant giving up any chance at glory.

"Why would you go to such lengths to join the war? There are other ways to achieve glory."

"It's not just about honor and glory. It's about my attitude, my way of life."

Leon realized the grit in this ragged, clueless, mocked knight.

Sometimes he battled monsters in the mud, sometimes he rode alongside mercenaries to earn his keep, sometimes he climbed thundering mountains bare-chested and without a single piece of equipment──

"You just live for the moment."

Leon had a hunch that this man would be like this until the moment he died.

* * * *

Dawn. A time when the sun has not yet risen.

Orc life is honest.

They get up in the morning, eat for lunch, fight in the afternoon, eat for dinner, and go to sleep at night.

It could be said to be the same as humans, but much simpler and more "ignorant" than humans, who split their time and sometimes even shift between day and night.

Strong and simple, that's the idea of orcs.

Unsurprisingly, then, the orcs' weaknesses are clear. They were vulnerable to night raids.

-Fire!

-Tents on fire!

The orcs were awakened by flames from the corners of their dens.

"What's going on?"

Morkan, one of the orc chieftains mobilized for this war, grabbed a boisterous orc and demanded.

"The food storage is on fire, the humans are attacking!"

"Didn't the beastly things do the guarding?"

"I don't know!"

There were not only orcs here, but also barbarians who worshiped beast gods. They must have been standing guard at night....

"Stupid humans!"

But even they must have their share of injustice.

On the other side of the canyon, the humans numbered only a few hundred while on this side they were tens of thousands.

Even if thousands of orcs had been slaughtered during the day, they were still outnumbered. How could he dare to attack them at night?

And that's just the two of them.

"The smell of burning beasts is delicious."

"Yes, my lord."

Beyond the blazing flames two knights were watching in the darkness.

Needless to say it was Leon and Jerea.

With their transcendent strength and all-around ability to handle any situation, the Holy Knights were able to inflict great damage on the orc camp with just a couple of raids.

"Your Majesty, you could have left this to me alone."

"Don't take all the glory, my friend. I merely wish to see the end of those beasts."

"Your Majesty's presence makes it easier, though."

"Well, it would be easier if Queen Spero or Lord Spinner were here."

"Queen Spero and… Lord Spinner?"

It was a connection Leon had made in another world. Of course he wouldn't know.

"Not that I care. If we're lucky, we'll be able to join them, and I'll explain then."

"I'm looking forward to that."

"But it's just the two of us today. We're going to have to make sure those orcs get their asses kicked tonight."

At that, Jerea smiled a crooked smile. It was a smile the orcs would have blasphemed as 'demons' if they had seen it.

"We have two Holy Knights here. What's impossible?"

Holy Knights are super weapons that could transcend legions in a single bound.

Jerea figured nothing was impossible with the most powerful Holy Knight of them all.

"A moment that will end up being a fleeting vision. I will extract as much information as I can for your Majesty."

Jerea was willing to sacrifice this moment to uncover the truth about the failed Holy Relic convoy that history would never recognize.

And if this moment didn't turn out the way it should.

If this moment is a faithful recreation of the Lionheart Kingdom as it was then.

'I have him.'

A Holy Knight comparable to the Lionheart King.