Who was it that protected and sustained the White Order?
If asked who, anyone would answer: the paladins.
The paladins protected the Order under the name of the goddess and judged those who brought chaos to the continent.
In the course of this, they braved danger and carried out their duties with their own lives as collateral.
For that reason, the paladins could be seen as the ones who protected and sustained the Order.
Gerard, the commander of the Paladin Order who led those paladins.
He was currently receiving a report in his office.
“You’re saying we’ve lost contact with Berter?”
At the commander’s words, Riana, who was delivering the report, nodded.
She was a paladin, and at the same time served as an adjutant assisting the commander.
“Ha.”
Berter Leobain, the vice commander of the Paladin Order, had disappeared, yet Commander Gerard’s expression looked bright.
“They finally disposed of the trash.”
Berter Leobain had not been a member of the Order from the beginning.
He was of the bloodline of a ducal family of the Kaln Empire, and the Order had merely been an option for him.
An outsider like that holding the position of vice commander in the Paladin Order, the force that sustained the Order?
It had made no sense from the start.
However, even if they were the Order, there was a need to curry a suitable amount of favor with an imperial ducal house, so they had granted him the post of vice commander of the Paladin Order as a title.
Of course, Berter did possess a certain level of ability.
But Gerard found that repulsive.
What was a paladin?
Even now, countless people were training their bodies and undergoing ascetic hardship to purify their hearts for the sake of the Order and the goddess.
And yet that vice commander only knew how to train a little, showing no true attitude of serving the goddess.
His conduct was not proper, either.
Gerard disliked every single thing about Berter.
That was why he was so delighted with the current situation.
“What are the losses?”
“In addition to Vice Commander Berter, a total of nineteen paladins have also gone out of contact.”
At Riana’s words, Gerard flicked the desk with his finger.
Tap, tap.
“Well, that doesn’t seem too bad.”
From the beginning, Gerard’s objective had been to replace the elements within the Paladin Order, including the vice commander.
No matter how clean water is, if it stagnates, it rots.
In Commander Gerard’s eyes, the current paladins were gradually becoming stagnant.
Some had lost the will to move forward, while others lacked skill and had entered through improper means.
The appearance of rotten parts in the place that should have been the most upright could bring about fatal consequences.
That was why he had decided to make use of the vampire subjugation operation being carried out by the Order this time.
Conveniently, the vice commander had not been one of the Order’s people from the start, so he would be easy to cut off as a tail.
On top of that, it was an opportunity to appropriately weed out paladins with poor records or those whose growth had come to an end.
Of course, it was possible that he had failed to discover raw gems among them, but he believed he had given them enough time.
And this had gone off successfully.
Berter, who had been a thorn in his eye, was gone, and at the same time, he had reduced the number of those who had little ability yet only coveted the Order’s power.
“Still, Commander. The scale of this incident has grown quite large. A hearing will be held within the Order, and in the process, if they happen to notice that the equipment was tampered with—”
Gerard raised a hand and cut Riana off.
It was known within the Order that only the most elite paladins had been dispatched for this operation.
Of course, that was true. Half of them, that is.
Half of the dispatched paladins had truly been composed of elites.
However, as mentioned earlier, those assigned to Vice Commander Berter were people who had outlived their usefulness.
Naturally, would Berter, who had no interest in the Order, have any interest in the Paladin Order?
He held the position of vice commander, but he had no way of finding out what sort of people had been assigned to him.
Nor had he bothered to try.
And as Riana had said just now, Gerard had devised a method to make matters even more certain.
Equipment.
All equipment issued to paladins was of the highest quality.
But equipment, too, was the result of human hands.
Among them, some flawed equipment that was not of the highest quality would be produced.
Gerard had pulled strings to obtain such flawed equipment.
And then it was a simple matter of placing it in the hands of Berter and the paladins assigned to him.
All of them had been such trash that they had failed to notice what problems there were with the equipment assigned to them.
‘They really were worthless bastards.’
For Gerard, having cut away the rotten parts, he felt nothing but relief.
“That will not be a problem, so let us hear the next report.”
Even if a hearing were held, the responsibility would end appropriately at Berter’s level.
In the end, the highest-ranking person on the scene had been him, the vice commander.
And from this incident, Gerard had much to gain.
First, the upper ranks would be shocked by the disappearance of the paladins.
They called it disappearance, but in truth, it was effectively the same as having been killed in action.
In response, the upper ranks would strengthen their guard even further and give more power to the paladins.
That was the same as saying his own authority as commander of the Paladin Order would rise.
‘My world will come soon.’
The corners of Gerard’s mouth lifted.
* * *
Berter Leobain held a magic sword in his hand.
It was the magic sword he had so desperately wanted.
He had suffered for days to obtain it, but in the end, it had come into his grasp.
Though the paladins he had led had been annihilated, what did that matter?
Now, as long as he drew the magic sword, he would gain tremendous power.
As long as he gained power, no being would be able to stand in his way.
With eyes filled with desire, Berter slowly drew the magic sword.
Tingle.
Pain came from the hand gripping the magic sword.
It was agonizing, but Berter continued to draw the magic sword.
At last, when the magic sword was fully drawn.
“Ugh…”
The pain he had felt in his hand climbed up his arm and soon spread throughout his entire body.
A groan naturally escaped him.
‘I never thought I’d obtain it easily…!’
Once this process ended, he would surely gain power on an entirely different level.
The pain grew stronger and stronger.
And before long.
“Graaaah!”
His whole body began to hurt as if it were burning away.
Pain surged over him, enough to make him wish he could faint right away.
It had surpassed the limit of what he could endure.
Something was wrong.
In that instant, the emotion of regret spread through his mind.
There was a reason people in the world called it a magic sword.
“Please…”
Kill me.
It was so painful that he could not even speak properly.
All Berter could do was shed tears.
“Oh my, how are you feeling right now?”
Someone spoke to Berter.
Even amid the pain, Berter struggled to twist his body and look to the side.
There stood a woman with silver hair.
The woman had an incredibly enchanting appearance.
‘A-a monster…….’
The large horns on her head told him she was not human.
“Humans truly are simple creatures. To think you would draw the magic sword without a single worry just because I placed a slight charm on you.”
The monster before him spoke.
However, Berter could not pay attention to her words.
Because the intensity of the pain he felt was continuing to rise.
“……!”
Once again, an intense pain struck him.
“Graaaargh!”
Perhaps his heart might stop first from the shock.
Yes, perhaps that would be better.
He wanted to be freed from this unending pain as quickly as possible.
And so he pleaded.
Though no words came out, he moved his lips, begging her to please kill him.
Should it be called fortunate, at least?
The woman before him responded to Berter’s words.
“Now then, try thinking of those who made you this way.”
Even amid the terrible pain, Berter listened closely to her words.
Because she was the only person—no, the only monster—who could save him, he thought desperately.
Those who made him this way?
It was obvious.
The family that had driven him out.
If they had only allowed him to compete fairly for the position of heir, he would not have resented them.
If he had not been driven out, he would never have had any connection to the Order, and he would not have met this end.
“It seems you’ve thought of them all?”
Berter nodded frantically.
He had thought of them all, so now he begged her to kill him already.
“Good. From now on, I’ll grant you salvation.”
Berter closed his eyes.
As long as he could be freed from this pain, he did not care what happened.
Celia looked at Berter, whose eyes were closed.
A foolish human.
That was Celia’s assessment of him.
Then, she soon summoned another being.
“Mr. Death Knight, if you would.”
At Celia’s command, the Death Knight slowly drew its sword.
Then it swung toward Berter’s neck.
Amid the blood scattering with a dreadful sound of wind, Berter Leobain’s head fell to the floor.
At the same time, Celia quickly put the magic sword Berter had been holding back into its scabbard.
It was possible because he had already offered his entire body and exhausted most of the magic sword’s power.
“This belongs to Master.”
Holding the magic sword, Celia headed toward the altar.
At the same time, two paladins who had been guarding the dungeon entrance entered, and they too followed behind Celia toward the altar.
* * *
Ding—
My smartphone alarm rang.
The moment that alarm sound popped up, I checked its contents.
- You have obtained the unique monster, Berter Leobain (★★★★).
“Oh.”
A monster I obtained all of a sudden.
On top of that, the monster’s grade was 4 stars.
Shall I check what kind of guy it is?
I touched my smartphone and moved to the screen where the monsters were displayed.
There was a monster there that looked extraordinary at a glance.
Because it had no head, it stood out immediately.
It had only a neck, with no head attached above it.
The whereabouts of its head were found in an unexpected place.
It was holding its head in its own hand, and its expression looked terribly pained.
“This is a Dullahan, isn’t it?”
A Dullahan is commonly known as a monster with no head.
For that reason, the monster I had obtained now also looked no different from a Dullahan.
“Well, still, 4 stars isn’t bad.”
It wasn’t as if I had spent gems on a summon.
The smartphone alarms did not end there.
- Celia offers the “Magic Sword” as a sacrifice to Master.
“Magic Sword?”
There was a sacrifice whose very name sounded dangerous.
But the problem lay elsewhere.
- Warning! This sacrifice carries the risk of severely distorting causality. Emergency measures will be activated accordingly.
- The abilities of the sacrifice “Magic Sword” will be restricted. The restrictions will be lifted in stages later depending on the user’s condition.
The word causality appeared again.
On top of that, it said the abilities of the magic sword would be restricted, so I even grew curious about just how powerful an item it was for that to happen.
- Receiving the sacrifice “Magic Sword.” (Time remaining: 14 days 6 hours)
“What? It takes two whole weeks?”
To receive the magic sword offered as a sacrifice, an enormous amount of time—14 days—was required.
“Ha…”
For me, who had wanted to quickly gain certainty, it was regrettable.
“Are there no other sacrifices? Two weeks is too long…”
While I was pondering for a moment, fortunately, the alarms continued to ring.
- Celia offers a paladin of the White Order as a sacrifice to Master.
- Absorbing the abilities of the sacrificed paladin. (Time remaining: 6 hours)
- Celia offers a paladin of the White Order as a sacrifice to Master.
- Absorbing the abilities of the sacrificed paladin. (Time remaining: 6 hours)
Two paladins were offered as sacrifices in succession.
And six hours until their abilities were absorbed.
After checking even that alarm, I was faced with the same situation as last time.
“…….”
Drowsiness had suddenly come over me.
“So I get sleepy every time this happens…”
It seemed this was something I would have to address properly at least once.
Thinking that I should tell Celia next time, I entrusted my body to sleep.