༺ Delinquent Saintess (3) ༻
The standby command of the Guardians Alliance was only issued when something urgent happened, and everyone living in the kingdom had the responsibility to immediately respond to the call.
Although the guardians weren’t related to the military and the central government, they still had to follow the standby command.
“Apparently we have to participate as well. Looks very serious.”
However, that only applied to the official guardians of the Alliance. Strictly speaking, we were still students that were supposed to be exempt from the standby command.
“Korin. They processed our promotion just then. We are a Grade 1 Guardians Guild from now on.”
“That was unbelievably fast – probably because of the thing that’s going on.”
The guild I created… Korin Guardians was on a whole new level when it came to combat potential.
Including me, a young Grade 1 knight, there was also the captain of a sword squad, Alicia; the oldest daughter of Dunareff, the dukedom in the south, and a semi-Unique Grade vampire mage, Marie; as well as Heavenly Yaksha Hua Ran, who was still under the strict surveillance of Merkarva and the New Faith due to her mighty strength.
Two of them had the label of ‘Unique’, and both Alicia and I were also roughly at the level of semi-Unique Grade. On top of that, looking at all the achievements we had made, the Alliance probably had no choice but to summon us despite us being students.
And during that process, they quickly promoted us to be a Grade 1 Guardians Guild, because there was a law stating that Grade 1 guilds always had to be a part of the standby command.
“I, I wonder what’s going on? There have been several wyverns flying around and it looks like something serious is going on.”
Alicia said while anxiously looking up at the sky. A few of the wyverns flying in the air were in fact from our side.
– Flap! Flap!
Along with a strong flutter of their wings, a group of wyverns landed on the landing zone inside our office. Stepping down from them were Kranel Luden, Yuel… and Lunia and the Five Swords who had accompanied them as bodyguards.
We walked up to greet them when Lunia took out two large heads from the bag of the wyvern and tossed them to me. They were the heads of ogres.
“Phew~. I guess you dealt with them yourself?”
“The plan was to keep them alive for educational purposes, but I killed them with haste to return as quickly as possible.”
The clean cuts on the necks of the ogres were an impressive sight. If Kranel and Yuel had been the ones killing them, the cuts wouldn’t have been this clean.
“K, Korin… We came back as fast as we could… after you called us…”
“What is going on?”
Kranel and Yuel asked while awkwardly glancing at the heads of the two ogres. Initially, the purpose of the mission was for them to practice working in collaboration to defeat the ogres but things had become slightly different.
“We don’t know yet either, but I’m sure we will be getting some news soon.”
In any case with their return, most of the members of our guild had been gathered to one spot.
As for the reason for the emergency summon, we heard that from Lady Josephine and Master Erin who soon teleported to our office.
****
“Student Estelle seems to have been captured by the mages of the Tower.”
“The Saintess?! That’s horrible!”
Alicia was the first to react. After that, the look on Hua Ran’s face changed, albeit slightly.
“That sounds pretty bad.”
“What’s the royal court doing in response?”
“They might issue a command to the East as well.”
“…”
Lunia as well as the Five Sword ladies all seemed concerned in one way or another. It was safe to assume that the East would have to mobilized as well because after all, the eastern side of the kingdom was the sharpest blade that the kingdom had in store.
Alicia Arden and Lunia Arden. Just with the help of those two people, the kingdom could gain access to two squads composed solely of knights, so there was no reason why the kingdom wouldn’t reach out to them while they were here at Merkarva.
“Korin. Were you expecting this to happen?”
“To some extent. I wasn’t expecting it to be this early though.”
The Tower of Mages was being way too reckless – even more so than how they were in the original game. Well, they were of the mindset that the world and the opinions of the people did not matter because everything will be reset with the Advent of Paradise so it was nothing new but…
“But you do not seem too surprised either.”
“Well, I did know they would do something similar in the first place.”
The news hadn’t officially reached us yet but we already knew who the culprit was. Nonetheless, I said it out one more time to drive it in.
“As we heard and as you know already, the Tower of Mages is the one behind all this.”
Although it was slightly earlier than scheduled, that did not mean anything.
We had made enough preparations and all that needed to be done was light up the fuse of the bomb.
“Let me give a brief explanation of our plan. Our goal now is to conquer the country of mages where the Tower is in, the Steel Archipelago.”
****
The prayers of the Saintess reach the heavens above.
Once it reaches the god, they will grant her what she wished for and thus, the Saintess’s prayers were always met with an answer.
But right now, her voice was unable to reach the sky.
“Mhmm…”
A piercing cold breeze woke her up. Estelle slowly opened her eyes to check what was around her.
Haystack.
And a building built with gray bricks.
It took her 3 seconds to recognize that this was a prison… and the piercing wind that did not match the current weather gave away the location.
“Steel Archipelago. The headquarters of the Tower.”
Being closer to the Northern Kingdom than the El Rath Kingdom, it was a land owned by neither country that was famous for the shivering cold. It was a safe haven of mages.
“How clever.”
The owner of the voice was an old mage with londirty blondede hair. There were still remnant traces of his intelligence and beautiful appearance from his youth, and his eyes were still glistening in gold.
The Great Mage of Gold, Adelene – he was the one who neutralized and kidnapped her all the way here. It was hard to tell what it was that interrupted the activation of her divine prayers, but his actions were even harder to understand.
“Why exactly are you doing this?”
“Are you asking for the reason?”
“Isn’t it too risky to go to such lengths just to save a few mages?”
“You seem to be misunderstanding something.”
Adelene had an indifferent expression on his face. He didn’t seem concerned about the future in the slightest despite what he had done already.
“Rather than asking why I did this, you should have asked what we were going to do now.”
“…I see.”
From his words, Estelle immediately realized that their goal had been to capture her from the start, instead of saving the mages. After figuring that out…
“Lord. Please grant me the power to destroy the enemy’s chariots.”
In the blink of an eye, she empowered her hands and threw a bare fist at Adelene. Reinforced by a prayer, her fist could destroy anything in existence and the body of the old mage in front of her was bound to explode like a watermelon.
– Grip!
However, someone blocked her fist before that could happen.
“Hihi, little friend. Very healthy and lively aren’t you~”
It was a thin man. Even though he was wearing a duster coat over his body, she could tell with a glance that he was a tall yet slender person.
At the same time, he gave off an ominous presence like the mixture of madness and chaos.
“You blocked my… no, wait. This…”
She couldn’t activate her divine energy.
“Hihit…!”
Estelle wasn’t a knight. She was nothing but a normal girl without the power of the prayers, and the fist of a normal girl was unable to defeat the King of Beasts.
“Hello!?”
“Dun Scaith?”
After carefully scrutinizing the face of the man, she remembered seeing him from a wanted poster. He was the wanted criminal who brought around beastmen and carried out terrorist attacks throughout the continent – King of Beasts, Dun Scaith… But why was he here?
“Magician Friend! Isn’t our new friend too energetic? Maybe it’s about time it wore off!”
“New… friend?”
“We do have to hurry with the experiment, because soon, the military and the guardians will come storming in.”
“Hihi! Then…!”
Dun Scaith suddenly took out something from his thin belly like a magician. Estelle found it to be a disgusting magic but widened her eyes in shock upon seeing the thing that he took out from his stomach.
“Holy… Grail?”
It was one of the four sacred artifacts left behind in the records. Why was such a thing coming out of the body of a terrorist?
“Holy Grail? Ahh~ I see. So that’s how you call it, huh?”
Rather than a holy grail, it was closer to a large cauldron. After a giggle, Dun Scaith placed down the so-called Holy Grail, ‘Magic Cauldron of Undry’ in front of her.
“It will sting a little, okay? My friend Saintess.”
He took out a dagger before slashing down at her wrist.
“Uhhk…!”
Estelle frowned from the unfamiliar feeling of pain. It spooked her to see blood dripping down her wrist. Her body was supposed to be under a blessing and yet it was cut open by a mere dagger. She pursed her lips as she witnessed the impossible.
“What are you… going to do with it?”
“There are many uses for the Holy Blood. For example… when bringing back the long-dead giants of the past.”
“What do you…!”
“You asked for the reason, did you not?”
The Great Mage of Gold looked down at the stupefied look on her face and said with a voice of certainty.
“Gaining something is not what’s important. It’s about not losing it.”
Siding with the winners. The reason behind the Tower Lord’s decision was ever so simple yet calculative.
****
Guardians were groups of mages and knights. The Alliance, which stood for the rights of the guardians and gave out missions, was technically like a union of mercenaries.
However, guardians weren’t normal occupations. They could slice down villages with a sword and burn down towns with magic, and the Alliance was the one managing those superhuman monsters.
Therefore, they were at the top of the continent in terms of both financial power and political status. The main building of the Guardian Alliance that we arrived at, was magnificently polished as if to prove their might.
“Korin. It’s my first time coming to the Alliance.”
“You’re in your third year though. Didn’t you have work placements and… Ah.”
Ever since she turned into a vampire in her 2nd year at Merkarva Academy, she became one of the few people that needed constant supervision. Because of that, Marie had to refrain from most of the official activities.
And that was why she didn’t have any records left behind under her name throughout her 2nd year, which she would have otherwise used to build up a portfolio and a career as a promising guardian.
“Well, let’s try to move around a bit more from now on. With me included of course.”
“Hehe. Sounds great to me.”
I headed down the lobby with Marie to the reception desk, and one of the staff there politely said after recognizing me.
“Welcome, Master Korin. Please follow me in.”
Thanks to that, we were able to enter the conference without having to go through some boring procedures.
The conference room of the Guardian Alliance was… closer to an auditorium if anything. Even apart from Marie and I, there were around 70 people each sitting in their seats.
“Korin. These people…”
Alliance had commanded only for the guild masters and deputy masters to come, which meant that everyone here was either a master or a deputy master of a guardians guild.
There were roughly 70 here, and a simple calculation showed that there were more than 30 guilds gathered in this one place.
“What’s with those kids?”
“Are they involving kids in this important matter?”
“…”
However, none of them were students. All of them were aged veteran guardians, so it was natural for us to gather a great amount of attention.
It seemed that all the nearby guilds had been summoned to this auditorium. After a while, a new group of people entered the room. All of them were wearing suits except for one, who was wearing some comfortable casual clothing.
“Is everyone here?”
The middle-aged man with a vicious countenance and a bushy beard was the chairman of the Alliance and a former-knight, who could most certainly still be fighting at the frontlines. He was one of the people chosen personally by Master Erin, who still had quite the influence over the Alliance.
“Let’s go straight to the point without beating around the bush.”
The chairman personally explained everything in a simple and straightforward manner.
The escort convoy of the New Faith which had been escorting the convicts was attacked by mages from the Tower and groups of mercenaries and had no choice but to fall back. During that process, the Saintess volunteered to stand at the back of the retreat to hold the enemy, but according to news gathered by the scouts after the event, it became evident that the Saintess had been captured.
“A giant?”
A man who was listening to the chairman’s story with a cup of tea in hand stopped and raised a question.
“Isn’t that something that only comes out in fairy tales?”
“You idiot. Giants existed for real. In the north there are still half-giants roaming around.”
“I know that, but there aren’t any giants that are still alive anymore.”
The man audibly placed the cup down and gave a realistic assumption.
“It must have been a type of golem. It appeared after absorbing the flesh of chimeras and the cores of golems, right? It’s surprising that they managed to create a golem of that size, but I guess it’s not impossible if we are talking about the leader of the Gold Cult.”
“Do you know a thing or two about golems?”
“I’ve been in a long contract with the Luden family, which is well-known for being great with golems. They are buying the rare metals we collect at a pretty good price.”
Ah~, I finally remembered where I saw his face from. That man was the collaborator, Mr. Rendal, who appeared in the character scenario quest of Golem Mage, Kranel Luden.
He was the one who provided the golem core for the combination grand spell Kranel could use with Yuel after she awakened as the Sage of the Forest, ❰Master Form Junk Wooden Golem – Luden Warrior❱
“Anyway, it’s surprising that they created a golem that big, but it’s even more surprising that the Tower seems to have gone absolutely nuts.”
The nearby guardians agreed with the words of Mr. Rendal.
Even another incident at the level of the Academy chairman’s assassination wouldn’t have led to such dramatic reactions from them.
The Saintess of the New Faith and the 1st Princess of El Rath, the dominant country of this continent.
This person was even more of an ‘untouchable’ than Marie.
She was like an atomic bomb where messing with her meant immediately making the two giant factions, the New Faith and the El Rath Kingdom into an enemy.
Unlike the chairman assassination incident, it wasn’t something that could be covered up and postponed by saying it was the ‘rampage assault’ of a small portion of the Tower.
“It will be certain at this point that there will be an attack on the Tower, right?”
“What about the military? And are the holy knights from the New Faith coming as well?”
“Even the Tower will have a hard time against the royal military. The question is how many guardians they’re going to mobilize but…”
Although they didn’t spell it out loud, all the guild masters and deputy masters didn’t seem too keen with the idea of participating in the war.
That was natural because now that the continent entered a state of relative peace, demons were the only ones deemed an enemy, and a large-scale battle wasn’t going to be helpful for any of them.
However, it was impossible for the kingdom to mobilize all of them. In fact, forcing all the guilds to move was something that was only possible for fights like the final battle which had the fate of humanity on the line.
“Hmph. Don’t worry. Only 7 elite guilds will have to leave from our branch.”
The guardians let out a sigh of relief after hearing the words of the chairman. There were 30 guilds gathered here, and it was highly likely that they would be exempt from the war.
But the chairman wasn’t done with his words.
“Ah~ by the way, for the guilds that participate in this subjugation mission of the Tower of Mages, you will receive the permission for ‘Unrestricted Plunder’. Whether it be materials… or people.”
“…!!”
“What?!”
Some of them even shot out of their seats from sheer astonishment.
Unrestricted plunder meant they would be permitted to steal and pillage everything without any restrictions. There were centuries-worth of treasures and magic artifacts in the Tower and the mages themselves were also precious slave material.
That was an indirect permission to slavery. Now that slavery was illegal, with only the evil and wicked people becoming slaves these days, it was most certainly a shocking offer.
It was a big declaration that proved how infuriated the kingdom was about this incident.
“We, the Red Hammer Knights, will gladly step up to save the Saintess!”
“Bullcrap and nonsense! Our Modern Magic Research Group will obviously be more helpful!”
“Chairman! Chairman! The Excalibur Squad will naturally be a part of the war, right?!”
Due to the greedy reactions from the guardians, the auditorium immediately turned into a pandemonium.
In a war with destined victory, they were allowed to plunder without any restrictions. At this point, it wasn’t even a question that they could sweep up a fortune from this one battle.
Seemingly having expected such a response from the start, the chairman leisurely watched the chaotic display. After calmly waiting for them to settle back down, the chairman opened up a scroll.
“The 7 elite guardians guilds have already been nominated. The guilds that are not listed here can only assign up to 4 guardians.”
The list presented by the chairman read as follows.
====================
====================
1. Red Brotherhood
2. Rounds
3. Knights of Fiana
4. Modern Magic Research Group
5. Iron Warhammer
6. Northern Militia
7. Korin Guardians
====================
====================
—————————————!!!!
The guardians that were a part of the main assault group heaved out sighs of relief whereas those that could not each showed their discontentment.
One of them shot out of their seats while fluttering their honey-blonde hair behind them.
“This is not fair, Chairman!”
“What is it? Master Allen of Invisible Hand of Gold?”
“I can understand the other guilds to some extent! But Korin Guardians is a totally different story!”
Ah~ it was someone I knew. He was the second son of a relatively big merchant group located in the capital that gave out decent missions.
“Korin Guardians? Who are they?”
“A guild made by a group of brats that haven’t even graduated yet.”
“You mean little kids are a part of the group while we’re not?! That makes zero sense!”
Even though I was quite a famous new knight in the industry, it had only been 2 months since we created our guild, and it seemed that the others didn’t know much about the members of our guild.
Well, that was understandable because our focus had been on the laboratories of the guys from the Tower of Mages and not the big missions that required the collaboration of multiple guilds.
“Student Korin! Think this through! This is not something you guys can handle!”
Guild Master Allen came up to me and tried to coax me into giving up on attacking the Tower of Mages. Considering his background, he was probably going to give an offer.
“However, I understand that letting go of this opportunity would seem like a great waste. We, the Invisible Hand of Gold is a guild under one of the 10 big merchant groups of the capital, Gold Hand. Student Korin, if you yield the position to us, then I promise you that there would be a generous reward.”
“What!? Allen, you bastard! You sneaky little bitch!”
“He’s trying to buy his way in? Is this allowed, Chairman!?”
“…”
Chairman remained silent without bothering to stop Allen. That was a sign that he was silently giving permission.
Feeling even more confident after seeing that the chairman wasn’t going to intervene, Allen even offered a specific amount of gold.
“If you decide to yield it to us, we will pay you 2,000 gold coins at once. How does that sound? Of course, even if you do hand over the position, we will make sure to kindly look after the four guardians you will be dispatching with the group.”
2,000 gold coins.
Roughly 2 million in dollars.
It was definitely an offer that could intrigue some people to give away the spot, because of the uncertainty of the rewards from the battle. However…
“Interesting. Go on.”
Our lovely deputy master said with a bright smile on her face.
