Chapter 28: Lilith (Part 2)
“… Oh.”
Under the authoritative tone, the woman named Lilith trembled, reluctantly rising to sit on the edge of the bed across from me, nearly half her behind hanging off, her hands nervously clasped over her little belly, clearly indicating she was trying to keep a safe distance from me.
This left me feeling a bit speechless.
Why is she so afraid of me?
… Is it because my mask still has bl**d stains on it?
I couldn’t help but lift a hand to touch my face, my fingertips gliding over the cold, painted wooden mask, where I felt the still not fully dried sticky liquid. I brought my hand in front of my eyes for a look… hmm, dark red.
Looks like I’ve got quite a bit of bl**d on this thing…
Well.
I’ve got no time to go wash it off, so I guess it’ll stay like this for now.
Making a woman fear me…
Doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing after all.
“Ahem.”
I lifted my head again to look at her, clearing my throat: “So, can you please give me the gist of what happened, but make it quick and simple?”
“… Okay.”
Upon hearing this, Lilith took a deep breath.
Then she sat there twirling her fingers, her gaze drifting out to the night beyond the window, her eyes flickering as if she were organizing her thoughts and emotions. After a moment, she slowly began to speak.
“… To be honest, I’m not even sure how to say this. Until the beginning of last year, everything was just fine… Some things still feel a bit unreal… so utterly incomprehensible…”
The night grew darker amidst the hazy shadows of the city.
As the woman softly recounted, the entire unfolding of events began to paint itself in my mind.
At the beginning of last year, around the end of March, the Holy Church declared the end of the heretic purge in the southern border of Silgaya. The citizens of Alectine City cheered for three whole days, loudly celebrating the occasion. The entire city was filled with a joyful atmosphere, people sang praises for the church and the knights who had fallen in battle. Bards performed newly composed heroic ballads until the troops of the First Knights Order gradually began to depart the city, leaving behind a lingering warmth of celebration.
Then, it seemed an order was issued from the Holy City, announcing plans to collaborate with the Royal Palace of Emerald City, the northern lords, wealthy merchants, and with the restructured New Currency Exchange. They decided to pool resources and manpower to rebuild the cities in Silgaya that had suffered greatly due to war and flooding, aiming to help this land swiftly emerge from the shadows of disaster and regain its prosperity, ensuring those who lost their farmlands would no longer go hungry, with all those who had suffered set to receive the blessings of the deity and find new homes.
Soon after this directive was established, a new team led by Archbishop Ansiel moved into Alectine City. They listed the first batch of cities in need of aid, with Alectine City boldly at the top.
After that, as more clergy and members of the Second Knights Order arrived, a convoy from the Currency Exchange first reached the city at the beginning of May. They brought many supplies, and countless people—including those refugees who had lost their villages and lands during the war—came flooding into Alectine City.
During that time, the people of the southern region, especially those in Alectine City, including notable nobles like Lilith’s mother, seemed to see a flicker of hope reignite amid the ashes left by war. Everyone shed their shadows of pessimism and confusion, brimming with determination and hope every single day.
Unfortunately, such prosperity did not last long.
Eventually, a tax edict and a new series of regulations began pouring in, and slowly some began to realize the true motives of those so-called “divine servants” and clergy, who arrived brandishing aid and shouting promises to end hunger: the northern merchants and wealthy nobles had other plans when they came to this city.
And the “mutiny” of the Third Knights Order happened right around this time.
“… The first to sense that things were amiss, I think… should have been a fairly esteemed captain among the Third Knights, who was still alive back then… He became the new captain, Barry, after the war; I met him a few times… He seemed to be a man with a strong sense of justice…”
Lilith told me that the Third Knights received orders at that time stating that the few hundred survivors from the battlefield would be individually transferred into the Second Knights Order.
Though for Barry and the others, this was not good news; it meant that the comrades they had forged deep friendships with during the war would soon have to part ways, and the Third Knights Order would cease to exist, or perhaps over ten to twenty years, evolve into a completely new military entity.
They wouldn’t get another chance to revive the spirit of the heroic band or continue Captain Williams’ legacy.
At that time, everyone felt disheartened.
But ultimately, it was an order from the Holy City, so there was no way around it. With all that said, the Third Knights Order couldn’t hold together with just a few hundred people. Although saddened, they understood the circumstances and after a few minor antics, began to reach out to the Second Knights Order to negotiate how to split the roster.
“Barry told me about the roster distribution too… He said those he had good relations with were being scattered, and he was assigned to Squad 21 of the Second Knights Order. He met their captain and found him to be a rather unreliable fellow who drank all day… Barry wasn’t impressed and asked if I could pull some strings to get him reassigned to another squad with a buddy… But…”
“What could I do?”
Yet, things still seemed to be heading in a favorable direction.
Until one evening, the not-yet-retired captain of the Third Knights, after a small meeting, hurried back with a serious expression and told them something seemed off.
That night, as the captain was on his way to a meeting with the vice-captain of the Second Knights Order, he had to use the restroom and happened to overhear a conversation outside the tent, discovering they had no intention of integrating those few hundred survivors into the Second Knights Order. Their true mission was to erase the Third Knights Order under a secret d*ath sentence for the “crime of heresy.”
They planned to first “distribute” the remaining members of the Third Knights Order, then swiftly capture them one by one without giving anyone a chance to react or escape. The “confession forms” used for framing were secretly brought to Barry and everyone else in the Third Knights Order.
After that, the long night drenched in bl**d began.
“But… things actually weren’t like that…”
Later on, Lilith managed to reach out to that vice-captain of the Second Knights Order through her own connections, where she learned that night, Barry’s justice-driven captain had deceived them all—he had lied to everyone in the Third Knights Order.
The true mission of the Second Knights Order upon arriving in Alectine City was to root out the “remnants of St. George” lurking within the Third Knights Order—those who continued to support St. George secretly after his downfall, or the relatives of his supporters.
And just so happened, Barry’s captain was one of those so-called “remnants of St. George.”
He had once been a guard for Captain Williams, and his family back in the impoverished mountains of Ethanbel had always been under the protection of the Williams Family. After St. George’s complete downfall, his family was secretly relocated, and during that time last year, they’d been spreading some rumors the church definitely didn’t want to hear around the outskirts of the Royal City…
