While I approached the encampment, I couldn’t help but notice how uniform everything was. The wagons were placed in a perfect semicircle, equidistant from each other, and the people sleeping were fanned out from the central fire like a sundial. The 3 standing guards were wearing heavy armor and were all standing perfectly straight with massive shields in front of them, covering their lower halves. Even the horses tied to the tree were lined up evenly as they slept.
When I approached the guard who had waved to me, he put his finger to his mouth and nodded his head towards the sleeping figures on the ground, indicating that I should be quiet to avoid waking the others. I obliged, staying silent and walking right up to him, standing at the edge of what I imagined his reach to be.
He was only a few inches taller than me, but even with armor covering nearly his entire body, I could tell that he was very powerfully built. His armor was unadorned, aside from a small insignia that looked like a set of scales on the left side of his chest. His shield, which was as wide as he was, and came up to his stomach, looked to be solid metal and had a much larger and more intricate version of the same symbol. His helmet was a simple knight’s helm, but he had the visor up so I could see his eyes.
When I stopped, before I could say anything, he lifted his shield a few inches off the ground, then slammed it back down, and a translucent, shimmering dome appeared around us. Alarmed, I took a step back, but the man made no other moves and began speaking.
“Greetings traveler,” he said
He spoke at a normal volume, contrary to his prior shushing. I then understood that the dome he had erected was some kind of sound barrier, to keep our voices from being heard by the others. I still remained cautious, though. That shield looked like it probably weighed as much as I did, if not more, and he had lifted it with ease, while wearing thick plate armor. His [Strength] was clearly much higher than mine.
“My name is Klaus Brune, a paladin of the church of Themis, the goddess of Order.”
This could be bad, I thought.
“I am Lucy,” I responded.
“A blessing to meet you. May I inquire what you are doing on the road at such a late hour?” he asked.
He seemed to be genuinely curious, and not probing for information, so I decided to respond honestly.
“A horde of goblins appeared back where I was originally camping, so I had to flee.” I said.
“A horde of goblins?” He said, eyes narrowing. “Are they close?”
“I don’t think so. They didn’t know exactly where I was, and I’ve been running for about an hour at this point.”
“That is good then. We will not have to take action. Did you see how many there were?
“I left before they got too close, but I think there were at least 60 goblins, and 3 or 4 hobgoblins.”
“So it is still small. That is good,” he said, loosening up again. “Are you traveling alone?” he added.
“Yes,” I replied.
“It is dangerous to travel alone. Your demeanor indicates that you are someone who is able to handle themselves, but it is still safer to travel in a group.”
“I am aware,” I said.
Klaus stared at me for a few seconds before speaking again. “I will not inquire about your circumstances if you do not wish to speak of them. However, you are welcome to stay with us for as long as we are heading the same direction. If you had arrived sooner, I would recommend you sleep with the merchants in the wagons, but I do not wish to wake them, so you will have to make do with finding a spot somewhere else.”
“I don’t think I will be able to sleep again tonight,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind traveling with you at least until Bizet though.”
Though it may have been risky, especially considering that these people were from the church of Order which sounded exactly like the kind of organization that would be after the incarnations, I needed more information, so traveling with others would be the best option. The paladins appeared to be strong as well, so they probably had a better idea of what was going on in the world than someone like Jacques.
“Very well,” Klaus said. “Feel free to go sit by the fire. Arne has the same barrier skill that I do, so if you wish to talk to someone, he would be happy to engage you in conversation.”
“Thank you very much,” I said, before moving to walk past Klaus.
As I walked past him, the shimmering dome vanished. I moved slowly and carefully towards the campfire, taking care and not using [Stealth]. I was fairly certain that it was a relatively universal skill, but I didn’t want to give them any reason to suspect my class. I sat down on one of the stumps that had been set in a ring around the fire, and as I did so, a new dome appeared, and the other paladin, Arne, greeted me.
Unlike Klaus, Arne was not wearing his helmet, and his shield was propped up against his back as he sat facing the fire. He was sitting down, so I couldn’t tell for certain, but he appeared to be taller than Klause by a couple inches, though he was noticeably thinner. He was blond with short hair and a well trimmed beard, and in the firelight, I could see that his eyes were light blue.
He asked me the same questions that Klaus had about the goblins and gave me the same advice about traveling alone, but after that, we were able to have a decent conversation where I learned some useful information.
“Your names,” I said. “Klaus and Arne. They aren’t the normal names for the area, are they?”
“Ah, you are observant. You are correct, we are not actually from Ravel. Our holy order is the one in service to Johann’s church of Order.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I recognized the name Johann from the map. It was a human nation that bordered Ravel on the south side.
“What are paladins from Johann doing escorting merchants through Ravel?” I asked.
“Ah, the merchants are just a coincidence. We happened to be moving in the same direction, and traveling together was more convenient than not. They will be stopping in Bizet, while we will be continuing on to Claude, your capital. The [Saintess] of the church has summoned all of the elite paladins from all of the church branches back for some reason.”
“Do you know why?”
“They haven’t told us yet, so I do not know.”
“Do you have any guesses?” I pressed.
“Some, each worse than the last. Historically, whenever the paladins were summoned like this before, it was due to a divine revelation given to the Saintess foretelling great turmoil in the world. I assume this is the same, and while I do not know what it is, I can almost guarantee you that the world will become dangerous in the near future. You should do what you can to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.”
“Thank you for the advice,” I said. “What kinds of events has the Saintess foretold in the past?”
“It is almost always some kind of war, though I have heard of it being due to plague or famine in the past. A few times though, it was because of a Demon King.” He said that last sentence with added gravity, to underscore the seriousness of such a threat.
I had a bad feeling about where this conversation was leading, but I pressed on, because I still needed the information.
“A Demon King?” I gasped, trying to sound slightly fearful.
I must have been convincing enough, because he responded with, “Yes, a Demon King. Though you shouldn't worry about that,” he hastily added. “Demon Kings are very rare, even among the Saintess’ revelations. And in the past, we’ve been able to use the Saintess’ information to find and stop the Demon Kings before they could get too strong.”
“Oh, that’s good then,” I said. Trying to appear relieved. “So, what exactly is a demon king? I mean, of course, I’ve heard the stories,” I lied, “but how do they come to exist? Can a Demon King just appear at any time?”
“Hmmmm. That is a difficult question to answer. In short, yes, as far as we are concerned, they can just appear at any time. According to the words we occasionally receive from Themis, there is some kind of sign in the Realm of the Gods, which is how she is able to warn us of them before they appear, despite not having any abilities to see the future, but beyond that I do not know. As for what they are, they are beings that have been granted power by a demon god. Usually, it is a humanoid, but there are records of animal Demon Kings as well.”
With that, I understood the bad feeling that I had had about the conversation. By Arne’s definition, I was actually a Demon King. My current situation suddenly became a very serious one. I was glad that my heart didn’t beat anymore, because if it did, I’m pretty sure that Arne would have been able to hear it pounding.
We continued talking for another hour after that until Arne’s shift on watch duty was over, and he was replaced by one of the sleeping paladins. I talked to the new paladin, Sigmund, until the sun rose.
The rest of the paladins rose with the sun and immediately donned their armor and lined up on the road. Their were twenty of them in total, with 14 men and 6 women. Their leader, who had been asleep while I was at the fire, led them in a series of warmup drills that vaguely reminded me of my time on my school’s basketball team. They jogged, stretched, and did some light exercises like pushups and crunches. Except their exercises weren’t very light at all, since they were all wearing full plate mail and had massive metal shields strapped to their back.
The sounds of their movements woke the rest of the camp, which quickly came to life as the other travelers stretched and rubbed the sleep out of their eyes while packing up camp. An hour after sunrise, we finally started to move. Once we started moving, I traveled on the outskirts of the group, trying to stay off the paladins’ radar, until Klaus called me over. The Lead Merchant apparently wanted to meet me, and had asked Klaus to introduce us.
He was a jovial, richly dressed old man named Armand, who was only 5 feet tall, half a foot shorter than me, and nearly as wide as he was tall. He greeted me with a very genuine looking smile and welcomed me to their travel group. As soon as he did so, I received a System notification.
[Pride] has nullified [Merchant Leader]’s [First Impression] mental skill
Interesting, I thought, as I looked at the old man. I know that [Pride] said it would make me immune to all mental status effects, but I hadn’t realized how thorough it was. This [First Impression] skill looked like it was just one to give others a friendly first impression, but even that was nullified, despite not being negative at all.
The merchant continued talking to me, and began explaining his job to me. Apparently Humphries’ territory was called Satie, and it was an agricultural town that grew grains. Bizet, being a city with a dungeon, was a city that was full of adventurers, artisans and dungeon loot. He was going to be selling the grains he had purchased in Satie, and using the money he got from that to purchase things that he thought would be profitable elsewhere, and travel to wherever he thought he could make the most by selling them.
He also proudly told me that this particular trip would be extra profitable because of the paladins. He did not need to spend any money on mercenaries or adventurers to escort him, this time. If he could get his business done quickly enough, he would try to hitch a ride with the Paladins again when they left for the capital in order to continue avoiding escort expenses.
I praised him sincerely for his business sense. I was no merchant, but I did take a few economics classes, and his plan sounded like a solid one, and judging by his clothes and the number of wagons under his command, his strategy was working well. Hearing this, he laughed and told me that if I ever wanted to buy anything from him, he would give me a discount. I’m sure that this “discount” he would give me would probably not actually be worth much, but I thanked him anyway.
There was no official breakfast, which I was grateful for. Everyone just ate their own rations whenever they felt like it, and because everyone was eating at different times, no one noticed that I didn’t eat anything at all. Or at least I thought I did. There was one person who I kept noticing staring at me. It was an unaffiliated traveler, and there was nothing too remarkable about him, aside from his eyes, which were yellow.
Since I kept noticing his eyes on me, I decided that I needed to at least look like I was eating. Or I would need a good excuse for not eating with everyone else. When we stopped for lunch, I informed Armand that I felt self conscious about my facial scars which was why I wore a mask, and let him know that I would be going into the woods to eat in private. I walked far enough into the woods that they couldn’t see me and waited there for a little while before heading back. Nobody seemed suspicious of my story, but the yellow-eyed man continued staring at me. He probably just thinks I’m hot, I thought. I didn’t say anything to him, because I knew he probably couldn’t help it. I would only have to endure it for another few hours.
When we reached the final stretch of the journey and Bizet could be seen in the distance, I was glad, because I would finally get away from the paladins. They weren’t bad company, but they were a bit stiff, and they were far too risky for me to spend my time around.
However, my joy vanished almost instantly before I even had a chance to say farewell to them when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. I started and looked behind me to find a pair of yellow eyes staring at me with confusion.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“I was just checking to see if you were a ghost,” he said.
“A ghost? Why would you think I was a ghost?”
“You didn’t eat. And you don’t have a heartbeat.”