It was an open country.
The only proper road was the big highway that led into the city. Even that was unmaintained and half-hidden by overgrown bushes and weeds.
Every time he stepped on the broken stone pavement, pain shot through him. The boy gasps for air, as if he believes there is life at the end of this crude road.
"Hmph—! Hmph—!"
He pounds the pavement with all his might, just to stay alive and find somewhere to ask for help.
If I see someone, I'll tell them——.
"Hmph—!"
Even the boy knows what a stupid idea that is.
Those lazy thugs think they're parasites.
They don't pay their taxes, they're ragheads who set mountains on fire.
But they are abandoned.
They live off the land contaminated with miasma, without any help from the government.
They are so poor that they can't survive without burning mountains to make coal.
There is no way they would do anything to save themselves from such treatment.
This country has been like this for a very long time.
Still.
He heard rumors that a town a couple hours' drive down the road sells produce grown with fire. When his father met the village chief, who drove a truck and bought the produce, he asked him in disbelief.
[I don't see many monsters around here these days, are the mercenaries doing some work?]
The chief smirked and shook his head.
[It's them, as usual.]
[But why are there fewer monsters?]
[It's unconfirmed, but I hear there's a group of people roaming around here these days, offering to catch monsters for free]
Hunt monsters and protect people for free?
It's a rumor, albeit a rural one. But the young boy listened to the story as he and his father walked around the town.
[What kind of people are they?]
The old man, the village chief, scratched his head and said a name that finally came to mind.
[I hear they're chivalrous—]
Chivalry.
Even for the people of Hwajeon, who lived a backward life far from civilization, the concept was too old and outdated.
[What a bunch of clueless people]
Even though they had dismissed the story as silly, it was strangely deeply embedded in the boy's mind.
With the story in his mind, he runs.
"Ha, ha—! Ha—!"
He races down an old, worn road with only traces of pavement left.
"Ki-sa, ki-sa, ki-sa—!"
With the glow of the city ahead, just a little further, just a little further, just a little further away──
-Crack!
A sharp piercing sound grazed the boy's leg.
"Ah—!"
A short burst of breath, and a harsh impact sent him crashing to the ground at the same speed he was running.
"Ah, ah, ugh—!"
The pain is so intense that he can't even scream. His knees, which were the source of the initial impact, ache like they've been shattered, and the sting of his skin feels like he was cut to the bone.
-KEEEEEEEEEN—!
Only his eardrums catch the sound amidst the agony of his entire body. He looks up to see a pair of bloodshot eyes watching him in the darkness and gulps.
"Ah, no. Don't come—!"
They are beasts of the forest, otherworldly monsters that can't even be defeated with a firearm. The only thing they have in common is——.
Both the forest beasts and the otherworldly monsters see themselves as prey.
"Help me——."
The boy knows in his bones how meaningless those words are to the monster.
He knows his voice won't reach them, that no one will listen to him.
But——
"Somebody, somebody, somebody help me!"
Even if there are no ears to hear, the boy must scream.
-Kyaaah!
The moment the monsters leapt with gaping maws at their senselessly screaming prey──
-Phew!
Something cut through the air with the sound of horses' hooves coming from somewhere.
-Crack!
A large spear slammed into the nape of the monster's neck. At the same time, an urgent voice called out to the boy.
"Take my hand!"
The voice belonged to a man on horseback. He reached out for the boy, who grabbed his arm.
"Yay!"
The man on the horse grabs the boy, lifts him up, and sprints off while the monsters chase after him but the chase doesn't last long since the monsters were much faster to spur the ground than the horse could carry the two men.
"Hiccup—!"
The boy flinched at the closing monsters, but the man grabbed him tightly and reassured him.
"It's okay, I'm not alone."
"This way!"
There was a group of soldiers there. Primitive warriors, armed with spears, swords, and shields that seemed out of place in this modern age.
They cleared a path, letting the man and boy on horseback through, then crowded into a tight formation, spearheads erect like hedgehogs.
"Let the battle begin!"
The man on horseback shouted and the boy looked up at the man through blurry eyes, overwhelmed by the string of hope he'd managed to snatch.
"Are you–are you a knight?"
At the boy's innocent question, the man smiles, perhaps even more innocently than the boy, and says──
"I'm trying to be."
He recounted his dream.
* * * *
"Whoa—, I think I'm going to live!"
Captain Kim Do-han poured a bottle of water on his sweaty face like it was raining. He looked at the people he had saved with a tired face.
"Man-hak!"
"Dad!"
The boy was a resident of Hwajeon Village, which had been attacked by wild monsters while patrolling the roads.
"Thanks to Lord Yappy, I found you easily."
"I'm grateful."
Koo Dae-sung thanked Yappy once again for the communication. Beyond the communicator, he heard a small mechanical sound.
-What are the test results of the new weapon?
Yappy asked, while Koo and Kim looked at the futuristic firearms in the hands of the soldiers.
"This is pretty awesome, much more stable and powerful than most magic bows."
"It's like watching humanity evolve from bows to guns."
By nature, the Man-At-Arms are organized around swordsmen, spearmen, and archers.
However, with the arrival of the Kikiruks and the establishment of Yakt Spinner's stardust forge, experimental weapons began to be introduced.
"Shouldn't we just arm all our soldiers with these? They seem to work well enough against the monsters at the Gate."
"But it doesn't work against the high-tier monsters. They're still nowhere near the physical prowess of a high-ranking Hunter, especially the 'Knights'."
Knights of the Lionheart have an aversion to ranged weapons, as Leon's example has made widely known.
They don't mind soldiers using ranged weapons, but they despise the idea of knights using them.
This may seem like anachronistic prejudice and arrogance, but the reasoning was simple.
"Any knight weaker than a ranged weapon is unchivalrous," they said, "and when you're a Holy Knight, you could slaughter a legion with one of these and not even snort."
They knew all too well that a weapon of this magnitude would be useless against a knight–who didn't meet the standards of a superhuman, let alone a Holy Knight.
They didn't even have to go as far as Leon, the Grail Keeper, because Holy Knights like Yakt Spinner, Beatrice, and Vulcanus, were a natural disaster in their own right.
"When is our old knight going to be like that?"
Even as he said it, Kim Do-han didn't think it was realistic.
The only knight in the unit, Koo Dae-sung, was a man of persistence and patience, but he couldn't compare to the natural talents of Han Ha-ri and Chun So-yeon.
'But he doesn't give up.'
Kim Do-han was hopeful that Koo Dae-sung would eventually fulfill his dream.
"By the way, there's been a lot of monsters around here lately."
"Well, it's Heilongjiang, and the gate management sucks. Besides, this is the former Korean Autonomous Region, Yanbian. They have enough on their plates, they don't need to take care of ethnic minorities."
A couple of months earlier, TTG Temple fighting force had been dispatched to defend the granaries of the Heilongjiang People's Republic during a major gate incident.
Knight Koo Dae-sung and hundreds of Man-At-Arms, along with mercenary hunters hired by Yappy, succeeded in defending the Granary, but when Koo Dae-sung saw the conditions in the Heilong People's Republic, where dungeon breaks often left people dying, he decided to stay behind.
So the one remaining knight and the fifty or so Man-At-Arms did a lot of work for two months.
"Anyway, let's finish this job and go to the city to rest. It's December already. The monsters should be less active, so it should be fine."
"We'll roam around a bit longer, then we'll go into winter."
While the world was still buzzing with Leon and the TTG Temple, Koo Dae-sung and his friends were also making a name for themselves in the Heilong People's Republic.
They travel the country, killing wild monsters and saving people for free.
Someone once commented that their travels sounded like a knight's tale.
Koo Dae-sung refused to be interviewed, saying he wasn't a good enough subject.
"Mr. Koo, eat some corn here."
Kim Do-han offered Koo some of the steamed corn that the residents of Hwajeon Village had served him.
"I'll eat it."
After eating the steamed corn, Koo Dae-sung looked shaken.
"What's wrong, is it tasteless?"
"No, corn is sweet and delicious. But——"
Kim chuckled, as if realizing his unfinished sentence.
"It's not like eating at the TTG Temple, though."
"I heard these people lost their land to miasma pollution and ended up here."
Monsters aren't the only thing the gate unleashes during a dungeon break.
The dense magical energy inside the gate spills out as well, contaminating the land.
Crops can't grow and people can't live on land contaminated with miasma so many people have been displaced, and they are just one of the many.
'With the blessing of the Goddess Demera, we can——'
Demera is the Goddess of Life and Fertility. Her blessing cleanses the land of miasma contamination and blesses the crops that grow in it.
Those who eat the crops do not fall ill, and those who do are healed.
The knightly virtues of Arianna, the Goddess of Light and Justice, and Petos, the God of War and Fire, were honored in the Lionheart Kingdom, but what the common people needed most was Demera, the Goddess of Life and Fertility.
'No, it is not for me to decide the order of the gods.'
Koo Dae-sung realizes he's been thinking blasphemous thoughts.
"Lord Yappy, the operation was a success, but I have one request."
-Hmm?
"Would you be so kind as to send one of the Clerics of Life and Abundance from the Temple, it would be good to have someone in this area to teach the Code of Goddess Demera.
-Goddess Demera's priests are all busy at the moment. No one is available.
"Yes——."
Koo Dae-sung felt sorry for them. Right now, what these people, these commoners, needed most was a place to live.
Of course, it was urgent to rid the area of monsters, but the miasma pollution was bad enough to force them into the mountains like this.
-His Majesty said that you shall teach them the code of the Goddess Demera, and let them tend the land.
"Me?"
Koo Dae-sung only knows the Code of the Goddess Demera by heart. Unlike the priests of the TTG Temple and other priests, he can't even use the holy code properly.
"Do you think I can just write down the code and preach it?"
-Yes.
"If that's all you need, then— but I think it would be a good idea to send a proper cleric later, when we can afford it."
-Considered.
That was the end of the communication with Yappy. After this battle in Hwajeon Village, Koo Dae-sung plans to fly away for the winter for the time being. It wouldn't be a bad idea to travel around the region for a while, spreading the teachings of Goddess Demera.
He wasn't sure if they would be so quick to believe in the teachings of the gods of the Temple of Ten Thousand Gods, but he decided to do what he could for now.
So he traveled around the Heilong People's Republic for a few days, spreading the goddess's teachings.
——————-
A man came to the hotel in Yanbian where they were staying.
"Who are you?"
"I heard that if I come here, I can meet my compatriots from— South Korea."
He was a North Korean.