Chapter 4: The Horse Without Feet and the Knight Without Words Part 4

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The news that the kidnapped people were alive caused their relatives to grab carts and rush to help; none hesitated in their efforts. At the very front of the procession stood Kriel, pulling a cart just like the others.

[You don’t look the type, but you’re surprisingly agreeable.]

The severed horse head floated lazily in the air and kept chattering away. Kriel raised his right hand and waved it dismissively. His shooing motion, akin to someone driving off an annoying bird, clearly conveyed his irritation.

[Hey, now. If I don’t lead the way, who else will know where to go? It’s a long walk; might as well pass the time with some conversation.]

But the horse head Orishin showed no sign of keeping quiet.

It’s the only one who knows where the missing people are.

If Orishin had laid some kind of trap, it would fall to Kriel to deal with it. Until they reached the place where the missing villagers were supposedly kept safe, he had no choice but to stick close to the ghost chatterbox.

Half out of curiosity and half out of boredom, Kriel finally spoke.

“Not my story. Tell me yours.”

[Mine?]

“What made you kidnap those maidens in the first place?”

[Aha! That’s the question, isn’t it? Like I said, it was the only way to avoid eating people.]

Orishin began his tale by cursing the cursed spawns of the Abyss, who had implanted a seed of corruption in him and placed him under a curse. As far as Kriel’s knowledge went, bicorns were creatures inherently disposed to devouring faithful husbands. This was a dark and destructive nature they couldn’t escape.

[But I’ve been living in these mountains for years. How could I devour the people born and raised here?]

Murder followed by cannibalism was an irreversible descent into depravity. Orishin had wrestled endlessly with the dark magic forced upon it and continued agonizing over how to resist it.

“And so?”

[Well, you’ve heard that unicorns are said to like maidens, right? But it’s not about maidens specifically; it’s about purity. At first, I tried surviving on clean, untouched water from secluded forest springs. But the demonic energy leaking from my body polluted it over time.]

“Why didn’t you just go to the temple in the first place if it wasn’t something you could fix with a diet?”

[This mountain is deeply tied to me. It’s the only reason I’ve been able to resist the corruption at all. Anyway, that’s when I started thinking: maidens are symbols of purity, right? And their hair is also considered a symbol of purity.]

This bastard. Kriel glared at Orishin with clear distrust.

[I figured if I ate their hair, it might help. Didn’t taste very good, though.]

So even in this world, there were people who avoided proper help and resorted to bizarre solutions. Kriel could feel the beginning of a headache.

[Nobody died! Sure, their hair got a bit shorter, but come on! Considering how often corrupted spirits pop up, haven’t I done a pretty decent job?]

“Be quiet.”

Kriel didn’t want to listen any longer and waved the horse head ghost away. Of course, being a ghost, Orishin was unfazed and floated right through his hand. Circling around Kriel with exaggerated acting, Orishin shouted in a dramatic tone,

[Did you think mere physical violence could stop me? Kreeeaaaaahhhh!]

The holy water-coated gauntlet proved effective even against the ghost horse. Orishin screeched in pain, and Kriel, chastising him to hurry up and move, turned his gaze toward the mountain range.

To be precise, he was imagining a military camp beyond the mountain range. This mission was the only thing standing between him and his discharge.

The thought of returning and filing his discharge paperwork bothered him slightly, but what were a few more days of hardship? Kriel allowed himself the pleasure of daydreaming about what he would do after he was discharged.

***

While the villagers reunited with their long-lost family members, a girl from the potato farm stared at her newly chopped hair that was reduced to something close to a buzz cut while she was unconscious. Enraged, she grabbed a farming tool and chased after the ghost horse with the determination to strike it down.

Meanwhile, Kriel silently packed his belongings. His travel gear was already simple, so his preparation amounted to little more than polishing his blade and maintaining his armor. Priest Jacarvil who was watching his back spoke.

“Are you going to leave already?”

“If a knight with a sword stays in the village, he will cause people to worry. Just as it is a knight’s duty to help those in need, I believe it is a knight’s duty not to cause unnecessary worry to others.

The knight who had arrived at dusk intended to leave around dusk the next day. The priest considered asking him to stay the night but quickly shook his head.

“Thank you for keeping your promise.”

“Pass that gratitude on to the commander. I simply carried out the orders I was given.”

The moonlight was bright, and thanks to the unique abilities of a dark knight walking through the forest paths posed no difficulty. However, a faint unease lingered in the back of Kriel’s mind.

“Why don’t you just come out?”

[You noticed, huh? Damn it.]

It was that horse head thing again. Kriel debated whether he should soak his gauntlet in holy water again.

[Wait, hold on a second, listen to me, will you? Hey, buddy, is it really okay to just leave a spirit corpse like that lying around? The scent will attract monsters, you know.]

“If I report it to the headquarters, they’ll send scholars for purification and research. Priest Jacarvil has experience in military chaplaincy. He’s already taken temporary measures to keep monsters away.”

[Well, then I’m doomed…]

There had to be a reason this horse head creature was still hanging around. Torn between irritation and curiosity, Kriel eventually gave in to the latter.

It was a choice born from the peculiar ease that comes with being on the verge of discharge.

“What’s the problem? You’ve been hovering around me for a while.”

[Sharp knight, I like knights like you.]

Orishin quickly laid bare his concerns. While his physical corruption had faded when he died, the curse clinging to his soul required proper purification.

“What about Priest Jacarvil?”

[Ha! That old man already has enough on his plate. Sure, he could do it, but it’d probably kill him from overwork. To cleanse a curse strong enough to affect a spirit like me, you’d need several priests working together.]

Orishin’s wish was simple: to find a priest capable of cleansing his soul. This was not a difficult task for Kriel. After serving in the Western Army, he had come to know the priests in their ranks whether he liked it or not.

“I’ll introduce you to the priests of the Western Army.”

[Oh!]

“Just keep quiet while you’re following me.”

[You’re someone I can reason with. I knew from the moment I first saw you that you were a true knight!]

With a loud ptooey, Orishin spat something out of his mouth. It was something that Kriel was quite familiar with.

“A bicorn horn?”

[Honestly, constantly manifesting myself to talk is exhausting. Breaking off my original horn seemed like too much trouble and a waste, so I took the one stuck in my eye instead. I’ll rest inside it, so just call me if you need me.]

The notion of a chatterbox like Orishin claiming that conversations were tiring was laughable, but there was no reason to reject his offer to keep things quieter. As Orishin was sucked into the bicorn horn and disappeared from view, the forest path finally fell silent.

Kriel ran vigorously toward his discharge.

***

But he could not be discharged.

“What can I say? The commander who needs to approve your discharge is currently away.”

“This can’t be. It can’t…!”

“Well, technically, you’re more of a freelance knight than a proper soldier. His Excellency the Commander treated you well, so I don’t see why you’re so eager to avoid service.”

The old Quartermaster with streaks of white hair chuckled lightly. Kriel felt a rising tide of bitter memories from his time in the military back in Korea.

No matter how lenient it seemed, the military was still the military. That suffocating rigidity was something he instinctively wanted to escape.

“Quartermaster, can’t you write the discharge papers on behalf of the commander?”

“You’re directly under the commander’s authority. If I did it, I’d be overstepping my bounds.”

As Kriel trudged away with his shoulders heavy with despair, the clicking of the Quartermaster’s tongue followed him.

“That’s what you get for being too good in battle. If you’d just lost a duel or two, the commander wouldn’t have taken such an interest in you.”

“I’ve told you before, it wasn’t intentional. Damn it…”

Though he wanted to unleash a flood of colorful curses, doing so would only diminish his Nobility. Kriel condensed all his emotions into one word, “Damn it.”

After leaving the headquarters, Kriel trudged along with heavy footsteps. He was heading toward the Priest Quarters where the military priests resided.

Upon arriving at the Western Army garrison, he had handed Orishin over to the priests. Since he was the one who had brought Orishin here, it seemed only right to check how things had progressed.

But Orishin’s curse had not been lifted. Even though he expended too much energy trying to convince the knights, Orishin was inexplicably deemed beyond recovery during the subsequent purification process.

This was the first thing Kriel heard as he stepped into the Priest Quarters. The sight of the unicorn head hanging sadly from the single horn of a bicorn created an almost surreal impression, even by the standards of this fantasy world.

“What’s going on here?”

Though Kriel’s abrupt appearance might have surprised others, the priests were already accustomed to his charred and suspicious-looking appearance. They answered him calmly.

Whether it was because the bicorn’s horn was used as a vessel to hold Orishin’s soul or because the curse was simply too potent, the priests themselves couldn’t determine. What was clear was that the Western Army’s priests lacked the ability to purify Orishin’s soul.

[Ahhhhhhhh! What are you saying? What do you mean, I’m a spawn of the Abyss? What do you mean I can’t be purified?]

“It’s not that purification is impossible. But the process could inflict irreversible damage on the spirit’s soul.”

The priest likened it to trying to extract only the ink from water after it had dissolved. This went to show how deeply the curse was bound to the original soul.

“It’s a difficult task, but not an impossible one. If we could bring the spirit to the main sanctuaries of the Holy Kingdom, or even meet one of those called saints or saintesses revered by the Church—”

[They’re just a bunch of wandering vagabonds who travel to the far corners of the world to help those in need! How will we ever find them!]

The priests’ gazes fixed intently on Kriel, and he could feel their stares. It was because everyone knew the reason he had ended up in the custody of the Western Army. The trial by combat. Among those involved in that trial was someone now called the “Saint”.

“I also want to help. But authorization for my discharge by the headquarters—”

An idea flashed in Kriel’s mind.

The orders he had received simply stated, “Resolve the trouble in Loran”. The tantrum of this unicorn was, in a broader sense, an extension of the Loran village trouble.

If Kriel left the Western Army’s camp to help the unicorn, it wouldn’t be a violation of his orders!

[Urghhh. I can’t keep living as this corrupted creature. I’d rather die. But if I die buried in the Abyss, even after death, I will—]

“No, wait. Now that I think about it, there might be a way.”

[What!]

“I’ll take this spirit with me.”

I will become a legal runaway knight.

That was Kriel’s decision.

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