In a small village near the border of the holy kingdom, two lives bloomed.

“Uwaaa!! Uwaaa!!”

In a building that seemed like a hospital, people gathered as they heard the cry of the baby.

“What a cry!! This must be Eir’s son.”

“You are right. That damn gorilla always shouts on top of his lungs. I guess like father, that child will become an adventurer too.”

Hearing the loud cry of the baby, people outside gossiped among each other. Among the two babies, one cried continuously while the second one who was lying next to him just seemed annoyed.

The two laying next to each other were met with the smiling gazes of their family members.

“Congratulations. Both are boys.”

“Ahh...”

An elderly woman who was there congratulated the family members there. Two men who were standing near the babies were the father of the two babies and eventually cried tears of joy.

“Ahhh...My son...”

Carefully, both of them picked up their babies and looked at them with eyes full of pride.

“See everyone. Hear the cry of my son. I am telling you, he will become a great warrior like his father.”

Both of them slowly came outside as people backed away. The father of the crying child raised his child and showed it to the people waiting beside them.

“Hmph!! How can a baby who’s crying this much achieve anything? See, my baby is as calm as ever. He will become a noble knight and will serve the goddess with all his strength and wits.”

Standing beside him, the father of the calm child sneered at his friend’s claim.

“Pft!! Ler, Ler. How can you be so naive? A strong child roars like this when he opens his eyes. How can a child who just stays quiet can become a knight?”

“What did you just say, Eir?”

“Truth. Hahaha!!”

“Damn you...!!”

Both of them boasted about how great both of their children will become in the future in front of their whole family and the people while having a battle between them. But the two children didn’t seem interested as they slowly looked at each other, giving an innocent smiles to each other.

With that, many years passed by as both of them slowly grew. Both of them studies different things, played different games, and got different interests but they still never grew apart from each other.

One day, both of them were sitting by a river, doing their own work.

“Hey, Rick! What do you think we should do in the future?”

“Don’t ask the obvious, Pat. Don’t you always listen to the lecture your father gives you?”

The child who was crying at the time of his birth grew up and now has become a hunk. A handsome, well-built, tall man that can scare children with his shadow only stood and asked his friend beside him with an innocent look that doesn’t suit his body.

His friend Rick, who was the annoyed, quiet child, grew up to be a handsome man. With a book in his hand, he looked at Pat, again, with an annoyed look as he was in the middle of reading.

“Don’t make me remember. Do you even know how many times I had to read the encyclopedia for adventurers? My father would kill me if I skip even a single day.

Pat expressed his so-called studying situation to his one and only friend. His father, who was an adventurer wanted his son to do the same, so to make him prepared for the future, he makes him read various things that will help him in his future adventures.

“Do you even remember a single thing?”

“...Nahhh!!”

After a brief pause, Pat replied with a carefree look which annoyed Rick. As both talked, the book in Rick’s hands catches Pat’s attention

“But hey, what are you even reading?”

With a keen look, Pat tried to get a look at the contents of the book that Rick was reading.

“Stop it, you muscle head!! This is a book about magic. That tiny brain of yours will explode if you were to even get a glance. You will become a maniac.”

Rick shouted and tried to hide the book, which turned out to be the book related to magic. Pat, who gets to know about the book, with his eyebrows raised, slowly tried to get the book from Rick.

“Now Now, show me what you got there. I want to learn about magic too!!”

“N-Noooo!! Get away from me, you brute!!

“Oh, come on. Just a little bit. Let me see it.”

Slowly, Pat started to use force to snatch the book away from Rick. Rick, who couldn’t overpower Pat, had no choice but to use magic.

“Then so be it, you pea-brain. Magic Missile!”

“Huh?”

From Rick’s palm, something white glowed and got bigger before getting launched towards Pat.

Boom!

Due to the difference in their build, Pat was able to overpower Rick, but Rick, who got absolutely annoyed by Pat, then used magic at him, sending Pat flying away from him.

“O-Ouch!! W-What the hell was t-that?!”

Meters away, Pat, who was lying on the ground, somehow tried to lift himself up. Looking at Rick with an absurd gaze, Pat somehow walked near Rick and asked.

“That was painful, you know? But first, what the hell was thaaat!! Where the hell did you learn that?”

With a twinkling and excited gaze, Pat asked Rick. From their birth, they have never seen anybody using magic. The village is occupied by retired adventurers or farmers who live their daily life by selling vegetables and dairy products to the holy kingdom.

The people in the village always had high expectations from the youngsters to either pursue the path of a knight or an adventurer, so nobody ever dreamt of choosing magic as their path.

“You know that the village elders and your parents will never agree with you learning magic, right?”

“!?”

Pat mischievously poked fun at Rick as he tried to scare him a little. Rick, who knew Pat, hesitated but out of pressure and fear finally let everything out.

“You are right. But I don’t want to do what they want. I don’t want to be a knight. I want to be a magician.”

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From when he first heard about the knights from his father in his childhood, he slowly started to question the knights.

“Father, what would the knights do if the goddess orders them to do something bad?”

A small Rick sat on his father’s lap as he asked a question to him.

“That cannot be possible. The words of the goddess are truth. Her existence is divine. Because of her, this whole planet is alive.”

His father is a devout follower of the Goddess. From a young age, he had the dream of becoming a knight of the Goddess, but unfortunately, he couldn’t achieve that. So, he wanted his son to fulfill his dream.

“But father, I learned in the school that the sun is maintaining this planet with his rays. How can the goddess do that?”

“That’s because the sun is a creation of the mighty goddess. Through her, this planet was born and if she wants, everything will cease to exist here, too.”

To his child’s questions, his father calmly replied while explaining the might of the Goddess.

“But the goddess cannot always be everywhere at the same time. So, to protect the good people, she created a knight order that, by her authority, protects innocent and gives punishment to the bad people.”

“So I want you to join them too one day. I want you to be like them who protect the innocent and destroy the evil. For me and your mother, it will be the proudest thing. So-”

Putting his child down, Ler held the tiny hands of Rick as he smiled and looked at Rick.

“-I hope you will fulfill this wish of mine.”

Inspired by the words of his father, Rick slowly started to train and practiced various things that were famous for being practiced by knights. He followed their diet, their movements, their stories, and their chivalry to his heart.

It was like a dream for him now. A craze he never knew existed within him. Then one day, the moment he waited for years came at last.

“Son!! Pack your bags. We are going to the capital.”

His father suddenly came running. Not even controlling his breath, his father hurriedly packed his bag along with Rick’s and his mother’s.

“Let’s go, son. The dream of ours for you to become a knight is near.”

With that, the whole family of three hurriedly traveled to the capital of the holy kingdom, where they then entered the royal church of the goddess.

“Father, this is so beautiful!!”

“Right?”

Mesmerized by the beauty of the church, the whole family slowly walked inside, imprinting the holy place in their eyes.

(Author: Will explain the entire structure in a later chapter.)

After a while, they reached the inner chamber of the church. There, they saw many other people standing in line, along with some people watching them.

“Father, why is there a line there?”

Rick, who knew nothing, got curious after seeing the line. He looked and asked his father to know as to why people were standing there.

“Shhh!! Don’t look at them. They are bad people who are getting their punishment.”

The people in the line were handcuffed and chained. Wearing ragged clothes, they had a look of fear on their face.

“Now it’s your turn. Get him up here!!”

“Hiik!”

A man in shining white armor then called the person who was first in the line. Following his order, two more people who were wearing the same white armor then dragged the person and brought him next to the person who called him.

“P-Please!! I-I haven’t d-done anything wrong.”

The man who was dragged by the chain pleaded to the knight in front of me as he tried to hold his legs, but was kicked away by a knight beside him.

“Knight Captain, read out his sins aloud.”

“Yes, Major. Offender no.194. He has committed the crime of stealing wheat and some other grains from the farm lord of the east village. He also blamed the farm lord, even though he has no proof. Even after getting caught, he is not accepting the crime he has committed.”

The Knight Captain read aloud the ‘sins’ of the person aloud as everyone there heard him. The person who heard him again cried and shouted.

“That’s a lie. It was my yield. I have grown those grains with my own hands. The farm lord was the one who was asking for more than the assigned supply that I was meant to supply him.”

“When I declined to agree to his ridiculous request, he plotted and made me a thief. P-Please Sir Knight, I am not a criminal!!”

“Silence!!”

The major who was standing in front of him shouted, making the man silent in an instant. His voice reverberated inside the chamber, which gave shivers to the onlookers and other criminals.

After that, he looked at him and asked.

“Do you have the proof that you are innocent?”

“Y-Yes!! Please check the transactions in the ledger. I have duly supplied him with the assigned amount.”

“Have you checked it?”

The major asked the captain standing. The Captain then brought out the documents and ledger and presented him to the Major.

“Sir, we have checked the ledger and have found out that there was something wrong with them. The details never matched the data in the registry here in the capital. It feels like someone has tampered with the documents.”

“And major, near his home, we discovered a hidden stash of grains and some substances that are suspected to be related to the demon tribe.”

The knight then read out the report of the investigation he made to his senior out loud. The man who heard the report cannot believe his ears and protested.

“That’s not true. I have never forged the details in the ledger, and I never had a hidden stash. I am just a poor farmer. I don’t even have the liability to do things like this.”

“Silence!! We have gathered enough evidence against you with the help of the farm lord. He gave you the land to help you in your dire time, but you betrayed him and kept excess yield for yourself.”

“He is lying!! He wanted me to give my wife to him. But I refused and for that, he plotted this against me.”

The man tried to convince the knights in front of him, but they were unmoved.

“We will hear that from your wife and the farm lord. Guards!! Bring them inside.”

On his orders, the guards guarding the main gate then went out and brought two people. Among the two there was a woman and a fat man who then entered the church, came by the side of the man and kneeled in front of the knight.

“We give respect to the Goddess and her knights.”

With heads down, they gave their respect to the Goddess and the knights. After that, the major who saw them then question the fat man first.

“So, this man here claims that you have asked him to give his wife to you and because he rejected your order, you have plotted this whole thing.”

The knight then cast a glance at the fat man, who turned out to be the farm lord. The farm lord calmly looked at the man first and then looked at the major in front of him.

“No Sir Knight, it’s not true. I have asked him to send his wife to me, but only to give her a job as a maid in my villa. Looking at his situation, his wife asked me to hire her, so I just told him about it. I had no bad intention as stated by this man.”

The farm lord, brimming with confidence, spoke, which enraged the man.

“LIES!! He is spouting lies, sir knight. He always had eyes on my wife from the beginning. Ask my wife. She will tell how he acted with her and looked at her with lecherous eyes.”

“My wife, tell sir knight. Tell that how he demanded to send you to him so that he can have his way with you. Tell him the truth.”

The man looked at her wife with an expression that thought that her wife will become his ray of hope, will reveal the truth but-

“... S-Sir Knight. What my husband is saying is not true.”

“...!”

Shocked, the man looked at his wife. His wife, sensing his husband’s gaze, turned her head away and looked at the major while telling him the ‘truth’.

“The farm lord had no foul intentions regarding me.”

His wife, his only beacon of hope, told things that he never even expected to hear from her.

“Our field is not giving much yield and because of that, the loan slowly rose. So I consulted with the farm lord for him to give me a job, as I wanted to help my husband.”

“After hearing that I have talked about a job with the farm lord, my husband suddenly got enraged and abused me and warned me to never meet the lord.”

“...”

The light of hope in the man’s eyes slowly extinguished as he silently listened to what his wife had told the knight.

“I don’t know about the substance and the hidden stash. It was the farm lord who told me about it when my husband got arrested. If not for him, I don’t know what would have happened to me and the children.”

“Sir Knight, this man, my husband, is lying and is trying to sully the name of the lord. The Lord did nothing.”

With that, the woman then looked at her husband and was met with a blank, given-up gaze. Met by her husband’s helpless glance, she turned around hurriedly and never looked back.

The major, who heard everything now, spoke to the people present there.

“With all the proofs and evidence, I have concluded that offender 194 has committed a heinous crime of fabrication, false accusation, and illegal smuggling of unknown substances into the holy kingdom.”

“Therefore, by the law of the Almighty Goddess, I announce the punishment for this man.”

“Knights, cut off his hands here and with his own hands, made him drink acid. He has dared to speak lies here, on this holy ground. Until his entire neck and chest melts down, let him suffer so that it can remind him of what the consequence of lying in this holy church is.”

“Yes!!”

The whole time, the man never uttered a single word or protested again. He had accepted his fate as he looked down with a blank look on his face.

With that, the two captain knights then unsheathed their swords and stood behind the man.

The man in front of them didn’t say a word. His mind already broke the moment his wife, the only one he has lived his life with and trusted very much betrayed her.

“Sinner, suffer and then get purified by the punishment of the Goddess.”

Slash!

“ARGHHH!!!”

At once, both the guards cut down the arms of the man. The arms fell down and blood gushed out as the man screamed in pain.

“Bring the acid.”

With the orders of the major, a knight then brought out a vial of acid and brought it near the writing man.

Then, one of the knights who cut down the man’s hand then came forward and picked up the arm and supported the hold of the hand on the vial as he poured it inside the man’s mouth while the other knight held him tightly.

“ARGH!! *Cough Cough* Khwak!!”

Soon, his throat melted and as the acid went down his esophagus, it slowly started to melt the internal organs, but before it could do lethal damage, the major then came forward and used his magic.

“Heal!”

A green light enveloped the man, and slowly, the effects of the acid faded away.

“Consider this an act of mercy by the benevolent Goddess. Guards, throw this man inside the cell and let him suffer the rest of his life.”

The entire crowd there watched the entire act silently and soon cheered for the knights while cursing the man and the rest of the offenders.

“Long Live the Knights!! All Hail the Goddess!!”

But there was only one who had a conflicted look on his face.

***