“Bang, bang, bang!”
The sound of the sacred wooden gavel striking the base echoed heavily.
“Defendant Lin Nuo!” A furious and solemn shout made Lin Nuo groggily open his eyes.
He instinctively tried to move, and the feedback of tight restraints made him startle awake—his hands and feet were actually tied behind a stone pillar.
It was the kind of pillar with the laws and codes that nobles and knights must uphold engraved all over it.
It looked like he was in the guild’s council hall, undergoing some sort of trial.
“Lin Nuo, in the Court of Sacred Law, under the witness of the Goddess, as the defendant, how dare you sleep soundly?”
“You set a fire on the Shiguang Sea, causing serious harm to the marine environment. Our Miss Fish will sue you for ‘arson with malicious intent.’ Please listen carefully to the trial, and you must not show even a shred of disrespect to this court!”
“? ?”
‘What the heck!’
‘I don’t even know if I won the fight yet! And why is there a law about arson with malicious intent in this other world… Am I dreaming right now?!’
“Your Honor, I…” Lin Nuo struggled to look up, and suddenly froze.
‘Huh… Why does this judge banging the gavel look like XÄ«?! And… why is the defendant’s seat actually just a fish?!’
“Still daring to look at me? Another charge for you!”
“Guards! Carry out the sentence on this criminal!”
“Ah?!?”
Dozens of flamboyant Paper Angels answered the call and surrounded Lin Nuo without question.
They immediately pushed over the stone pillar and, just like that night, lined up neatly to engage the helpless Lin Nuo in a profound and in-depth academic exchange.
But just as the discussion reached its climax, those Paper Angels suddenly transformed into something else entirely.
“Wait, wait a second, is there a mistake here!??”
“No, no, no!”
“Don’t come any closer—”
“Don’t come any closer to me!”
“At the very least, don’t turn into goblins…”
“Even if they’re female, no way!”
“Drip!”
A cool drop of water fell on his cheek, its realism snapping Lin Nuo out of the dream of being surrounded by goblins.
The soreness all over his body made it hard even to straighten his back.
He seemed to still be at sea, with the gentle sound of waves in his ears and the feeling of his body rocking with the tide.
He wanted to turn his head, to see who was behind that familiar soft sensation at the back of his head.
But the person who had been watching him all along, sensing that he was awake, steadily cradled his head, preventing him from moving and pulling at his injuries.
“Hiss…”
‘It really hurt!’
A fair and slender hand seemed to sense what he was trying to do, reaching over to shield his eyes from the morning light.
Squinting, Lin Nuo slowly opened his eyes wider, and saw XÄ« letting him rest his head on her soft, delicate lap, gazing at him with bright, sparkling eyes.
A few shimmering drops hung from her lashes, telling of how she had held him in her arms and watched him like this for a long time.
“Big brother firestarter, you’re finally awake!” A few little mermaids swam over to the wooden plank where he and XÄ« were.
From the corner of his eye, Lin Nuo saw that, in the fragmented morning light, the deep blue surface of the Shiguang Sea seemed to be covered with a flowing layer of radiance.
All around were many knights lying on wooden planks, resting.
The night’s fierce battle had left them too exhausted to even lift their swords.
Only the little mermaids, who heard the noise and swam over, and the star shells hanging from his chest—along with the prettiest conch chosen as his medal—testified to the unbelievable victory: four thousand Holy Knights defeating two hundred thousand monsters.
“Ton….”
XÄ« hushed him, her soft, radiant face drawing closer.
‘Ah… Why do you want to kiss me at a time like this? I suspect you’ll be a bad influence on the children, hey!’
“Bon~”
Her forehead gently touched his.
XÄ«’s long, dense eyelashes were just within reach, and the breath tangling at the tip of his nose shut out all the noise.
Only a strand of morning light shone down through the narrow gap between their faces.
She didn’t let go of the hand supporting Lin Nuo’s shoulder.
Using her other hand, she touched his shoulder, then bent down as the Princess, offering the touch of foreheads—a coronation for warriors from the ancient kingdom, the highest courtesy of Shilang Bay.
“I salute you, my great warrior.”
“Oh! The Sacred Forehead Pact… I see…”
“Hmm? What did Young Master think?”
The faint floral fragrance in the girl’s breath made Lin Nuo swallow his words.
As XÄ« helped him sit up, he saw schools of glowing fish, guided by the Magic Whale, pouring in from the surroundings of Shilang Bay.
Beneath the plank where he and XÄ« sat, a stream of living light formed.
The Ling Yao also dove into the sea, their fish tails beating the surface in rippling layers.
It was the soul of the bay, celebrating the victorious hero from distant lands in their own way, paving a road of honor.
“Reporting to Young Master Lin Nuo…”
The Treading Wave Sea Guard Knights who noticed Lin Nuo’s awakening did not rise to offer the hierarchical courtesy expected of nobles.
After battling through the night and achieving the miraculous feat of driving out two hundred thousand monsters, their tone toward Lin Nuo, the man of greatest merit, was not one of fawning to a superior, but of survivors sharing the joy of victory after disaster and the routing of the enemy.
“We didn’t let you down…”
“We won!”
“Damn… I thought following Young Master Lin Nuo would mean starving three days out of every nine! Next time you go to war, count me in—cough, cough!”
“Hahaha, me too!”
“Jiji…”
In the dazzling morning light.
Those knights, whether lying on the deck or sprawling over the cypress planks, burst into hearty laughter, while the merfolk brought them food and water, offering their sincerest gratitude for helping defend Shilang Bay.
“Splash, splash…”
The sea breeze fluttered by, gentle waves lapping, and the mermaids’ songs echoed from the shells.
Golden motes drifted above the Shiguang Sea.
As if symbolizing hope born from despair, it took root here.
***
Meanwhile, Angellei, who had deliberately climbed onto a certain reef and was contemplating the whole sea, heard a set of uneven, limping footsteps.
It was the equally exhausted Dax Migludia, leaning on a cane and carrying two jars of sweet grape wine.
He sat beside Angellei and handed him one of the jars.
“Angellei, seeing all this, do you still want to argue about the ideals you once insisted on?”
Dax Migludia asked, “Your way of leading knights against monsters has always been to offer your loyal men enough benefits and rewards to command them.”
“Like that time a few years ago, fighting monsters—you told your knights that if they broke into the monsters’ nest, the plant girls, fairies, dog girls, and demon princesses in that village could be left for the knights to do as they pleased.”
“After all, if the monsters weren’t defeated, those girls would be enslaved anyway, so you thought you might as well let your own men unleash their desires. That would give them more passion for fighting… Isn’t that what you thought? Did I guess wrong?”
“Yes.”
Angellei replied, “Count Dakesi, but in the end, you didn’t allow it, and made me tie up those thirty-plus monster girls and deliver them all to Young Master Lin Nuo instead.”
“You told me, because of this, he cursed you as dog shit for years.”
“Haha, that didn’t bother me. Do you know why I gave them to Lin Nuo?”
“You knew Lord Kuxiu wanted him to hide his abilities, so you wanted to tarnish his reputation for him?”
Angellei could only think of this one reasonable explanation.
“That’s only part of it.”
“More importantly, I knew Lin Nuo would set all those innocent lives free.”
Dax Migludia took a sip of wine and clapped Angellei on the shoulder, “I should have told you this long ago. If I were your subordinate, and I only stayed loyal because you allowed me to take whatever I wanted from the monsters’ nest, then…”
“In a battle like last night’s, I definitely would have run away but think again about Lin Nuo.”
Dax Migludia gazed into the distance at the blond youth being held by the honored Princess on that wooden plank, his eyes tinged with something special.
“Even I find that kind of leader charming, even though he’s so young.”
“If next time he leads these men again, which Holy Knight wouldn’t fight to the death for him all across the land?”
Angellei fell silent for a long time.
Only after Dax Migludia nearly finished his sweet grape wine did he finally say: “Thank you for your guidance, my lord. I understand now.”
Perhaps these few words of conversation seemed insignificant at the moment.
But later, when Angellei, clad in golden armor, once again led the Saint Knight Order to rescue the villages of the Divine Empire from great monsters or the Demon Army, they would be different from the knights of other noble families, never touching a single blade of grass or tree of the villagers…
If, moved, the common folk asked why,
They would learn from his own lips.
That it was a lesson taught to him years ago by a young nobleman.
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