Yami, the Knight of Diligence, who in my honest opinion. Wasn’t as diligent as the title proclaims to be, in his case, it seemed more like he was the Knight of sloth.

He lead me towards the castle once again, the path is still as complicated as I remember.

Walking through the streets was easy, naturally. But once you reach the castle it begins feeling like you’re walking through a labyrinth and a maze fused together.

But once you get used to it, it’ll get easier to roam through.

“So, did you make any progress? Or did you get rid of the ghost?”, Yami asked, without looking at me in the eyes, and simply kept on walking.

I could obviously not tell him that I sort of made a contract with the Ghost. I think I’ve got it across that in the whole world monsters are considered as, well… monsters.

And also, there was the fact that I couldn’t easily tell him that I spoke with the ghost. Not until I’ve come to trust him a little more.

“It’s… progressing… gradually.”, I responded with a vague answer. “Gradually how?”

“I spent the night searching for the letter thingy, unfortunately I was unable to find any leads.”

“Did you encounter the ghost? How does it look like?”

‘Gosh, he’s asking risky questions.’, I thought to myself as I began to form a adequate answer to his question.

Telling him about the Ghost can go two ways, first off he must know about my abilities. He knows of my achievements that have been spread by the guild, and since the reports of the original quest have all been said to only have one casualty, he knew that I’d make it alive.

If I’d tell him the about the ghosts appearance I have a feeling he’d say something like ‘So you let her live because she looked cute? Damn monster fetish pervert.’ Or maybe something like that along the lines.

If I’d tell him that I didn’t encounter her, I guess it would be acceptable. But for some reason it feels like if I lied to him, something bad would happen.

It’s just instinct or maybe it was one of my skills doing the work of making me beware of him.

“I didn’t see it, only for a split second though. I couldn’t recognize it’s shape.”, I answered with a lie.

He looked back into my eyes, soon after he sighed and looked back forwards.

“I see.”

As silence was about to close our conversation shut, he spoke yet again.

“Tell me, what do you think of it?”, he asked without much detail, which left me puzzled as to what he was mentioning to.

“What do you mean?”

“This country, are you liking it?”

“…”

In my honest opinion, it wasn’t bad. Considering the difference between how I’m being treated here and over on Dawnwell, this place felt far more welcoming.

It seemed like everything was peaceful on this side of the world, I haven’t really explored much except for this country so I can’t really say it’s ‘The Best’.

“It’s… peaceful.”, I responded indifferently.

He suddenly stopped in his tracks, his body shook a little.

“Pffft….”

A small laugh escaped from the other side of his relatively large frame of a body.

And soon, as if in queue, a huge laughter came roaring.

“HAHAHAAAAAHHAAA—!”, he broke down into tears, the laughter caused him to not be able to control his lungs thus causing him possible internal pain.

However it did not seem to bother him, not one bit.

“Hahahaa!! Peaceful, you say? Hahahahaaa”

Strength left his legs and he began squirming on the floor like a fish out of water.

I just stood there flabbergasted by his outburst, at some point I began thinking that maybe my assessment of this place was in actuality wrong.

“Am I wrong? I think anyone who’d come here, their first impression would be that it is peaceful?”, I began getting slightly embarrassed by the gazes aimed at us from the people down the street.

“Haha… you’re not wrong… huff…. it’s just… huff.”

He was out of breath which caused him to stutter while speaking.

He steadily stood back up as if the whole thing never happened in the first place and said.

“Do you know the relation between the other countries to ours?”, he asked.

I shook my head left and right in denial.

“Ahem, the relationship between Zeltram and Dawnwell is neutral, aka. We don’t meddle with each other’s business nor do we support. We accept their people who migrate over here as much as ours to theirs.”

“As everyone knows Glarita is long gone, for years. Back then according to what the King said, we were relatively peaceful to each other, we even signed a treaty, but it’s not important anymore.”

“As for Lacra…”, he now wore e a puzzled look, it’s as if words were unable to form themselves in his mind.

“We’ve had our fights, but right now I myself am not so certain myself.”, he scratched the back of his head while explaining as we walked. “A couple of years back there was a conflict between the church of Zeltram and the church from Lacra.”

“Are there two religions?”

“No, there is only one Religion which believes in the Four Heroes and ‘God’, also known as the four heroes church.”

“Then what happened exactly?”, I asked with a squint of interest.

“The religion revolves around the four heroes who vanquished the demon king alongside god himself. They spread the teachings of right and wrong and yadda yadda.”

‘Are you really qualified to even tell me this?’

“And Religion is the same regardless of what country or state it is in. Thus, both churches were believed to be filled with the same teachings and beliefs.”

“However, it so happened that about eight years ago a branch from the church from our side got into some meddlesome affairs with the ones from Lacra.”

As his explanation continued, his voice suddenly turned cold. “Something was stolen, and that caused ruckus among the two countries as well as churches, they accused us of having sent them as spies to steal whatever it was that they valued.”

“You don’t know what it is?”, I asked.

“No, that’s what we’ve been investigating the last couple of years.”, he answered. “So we’re being deemed criminals of something we didn’t do?”

“You could say so, they didn’t tell us what ‘we’ stole, mainly because the name could lead to something really bad and that’s why we’re doing the best we can to research the church.”

The worst thing that could happen would be a war breaking out, the church must’ve had something of value to Lacra, and so causing this to happen.

Since we didn’t bear any evidence that ‘we’ didn’t steal it, they are probably inspecting our every move as well as making sure that it won’t happen again.

“So in a way, it is hostile.”

“Yup, we’ve been running through the churches stuff, but we’ve got no clue what or where they put the thing that they stole.”, he said, while sighing as deep as he could.

“The king put this sh*tload of work on our backs, all the other knights are so fed up with researching the church that they have no time to do anything else, or at least a majority of us are in such a situation.”

“Why have there been no changes to the search? Didn’t you guys find anything of value?”, considering that the crime was committed 8 years ago, I couldn’t believe that they didn’t make any progress.

There is a saying that ‘Time is Relative’, that means that time goes and runs differently for every person. An example for Elves, elves may live long, but that doesn’t mean they have the same values as humans.

Humans have a life expectancy of 100 years, in a humans eyes, one year is a lot of time. But for Elves it is naught but a moment that came to pass.

That’s why, even in this short time they didn’t make any progress, depending on the circumstances, it would be understandable.

“I’d wish.”, he said with a bored look. “If we dig too deep into the church, they’ll blame us for trespassing into holy territory and we’d probably mess up things even more.”

“Huh? Isn’t this kingdom religious, or aren’t you two cooperating?”

“It is, but the country itself is not. The church and the Kingdom work together, they spread their teachings of right and wrong, and they receive our cooperation and allowance to roam free within our territory.”

“You came from Dawnwell, right?”, he asked looking back on me. “Dawnwell is a considerably new kingdom, and it doesn’t seem like the king himself wishes to knot ties with the church, and that’s the reason why nothings really been spread over there.”

“The king seems to like dissecting things, or rather separate them…”

“What do you mean?”, I asked as something seemed to have caught my interest.

“The last couple of years, ever since the new king was crowned, immigrants came flooding from Dawnwell to Zeltram.”

‘I see, and I’m one of those.’

Dawnwell is a Human Supremacist country, according to Willows explanation it was once more friendly towards Demi humans, but now it has gotten worse as of late.

Due to that very fact there’ve been a lot of immigrants migrating over to Zeltram, since this place was far more welcoming to other races.

“Anyways, going back to the main question. You could say that Zeltram and the church are two different syndicates who work together.”

“I see, so that makes sense.”, they are cooperating with each other due to common interest.

“But due to the little incident on our side, things seem to have split up. Lacra is a kingdom controlled by the church, meaning that the base of operations is over there.”

“And the church on our side seems to have become a separate part of the whole church now that the little accident happened. And that’s why the two factions split and its barely a syndicate anymore.”

“I see.”

‘But there’s something else bothering me.’

“I heard that the person who pulls out the sword will become a hero, told by the prophecy. And apparently it was approved by the pope and the sage.”

“If you’re asking about the prophecy thing, it’s something completely unrelated to the situation between the churches.”

“It isn’t?”, I asked.

“No,”, Yami said, looking as tired as always. “When it comes to the prophecy, imagine it as a joint cooperation between all nations, excluding Dawnwell. And regardless of what happens between us, the word from god is absolute.”

“The prophecy was received as a divine message by the church, the prophecy said that there would be a person that would pull Excalibur and become a legendary hero.”, he explained.

“However, that was not the last part.”

I listened closely, as for it felt like the conversation began getting even more interesting.

“Other than the broth of a new hero, it’s also been rumored that the demon king will be reborn.”

“The demon king?”

“Of course, if there is a hero, there is a villain. And the church said to have received a divine message that indicated that the ‘rebirth of a great evil will be cast upon us’. Or so the pope describes.”

“What about the sage? What connection does he have with the church, and who is he?”

Yami looked back for a second and released a huge sigh. “You’re asking so many questions, why don’t you go figure them out yourself instead of asking me everything?”

‘That’s why I’m asking you…’

And so our conversation came to a close.

A normal silence was made between us. Personally, I don’t mind this silence, it isn’t too uncomfortable like all other conversations I’ve had.

‘I guess I’ll have to research this by myself later.’

“Master!”, in the distance a girl came running my way, she was extremely energetic and considering the voice I heard, it was Azure.

Her blue hair fluttered by my head, as she aimed for a hug from the right.

Her breasts pressed upon mine, due to our similar height our bodies were practically meant for each other, however she was a tad bit taller than me.

“Distance, please… This is too much…”, I tried to glue her off me.

Don’t get me wrong, this was a joyous event. But as a turbo virgin, this much physical contact with someone with the appearance of the opposite gender was too much for me.

“Why are you here?”, I asked Azure, while being unable to glue her off of me.

‘I heard that a group of people came here searching for me, so it piqued my interest as to why they would come here.’

I naturally assumed that I was supposed to search them, so maybe I was in the wrong in that sense.

“We came searching for you.”, she responded innocently as always. “‘We’, oh right. Athena and the others must be here too.”

“Master.”, another voice came from a distance. As I remembered this soft voice clearly, I could recognize the owner.

It was Athena, her light steps made small tap noises across the hallway, making it extremely cute.

Me and the so self proclaimed Knight of Diligence were chatting for so long that we reached the inners of the castle, and were close to our destination.

“We’re you waiting for too long?”, I asked.

She closed down the distance, from 10 meter distance to a casual 2 meter distance between bodies in order to hold conversation.

“Give master some distance.”, Athena, before she answered my question, she did the impossible and unglued Azure from my body.

I couldn’t dare to touch a girl, and the way Azure had held me made it difficult to even do the slightest movement without touching anywhere inappropriate.

‘Thank god Athena, you saved my heart from getting an attack.’

As Azure squirmed in Athenas arms, she casually responded to my question. “We waited for a couple of hours, but it’s okay.”

“We forgot to tell you where our Inn was, I apologize.”, Athena apologized with a small bow.

“I’m sorry too, master.”, Azure apologized as well, she appeared to have understood the situation Athena had put me in and felt partially at fault.

“It’s okay, we’re here now and that’s what matters.”

‘Fussing about a timeline that doesn’t exist is foolish in itself.’

“Where are the others?”, I asked Athena. “Alice, Lara and Luna should be on their way to over here. Azure suddenly went charging towards somewhere while saying ‘Master is nearby!’”

‘Creepy, does she have some sort of radar?’

“See, I was right! He is here right now!”, Azure said, as she wore a smug expression. “How did you know I was nearby?”

“I could feel you nearby.”, Azure responded vaguely. “Yes but how exactly?”

“Hmm…, master has this black goo surrounding him. I could feel the gooey feeling from afar!”

Athena just like me was as confused as to what she was referring to. But if I had to guess it was my ‘Demonic Presence’.

‘Aura’ skills work differently on monsters and humans, as well as some are able to see it while some are not.

“Master, are you free now?”, Athena asked out of nowhere. “No, I still have to finish this mission, and I also need to explain to you—“

“Great, could I join you?”, Athena asked, her eyes showing immense intent and determination. “Well…”

“No, you have no right to refuse. I will be coming, and you can explain to me everything along the way.”, Athena decided to pursue me, regardless of my decision.

Ever since the tournament she said she wanted me to rely more on her, it may not look like it before but she certainly wants to assist.

“Me too, master!”, Azure joined in with Athena.

“It’s okay, you can come with me. It’s just…”

I looked back on the ‘Knight of Diligence’ Yami.

“Guh!”

His eyes were sending shivers up my spine, his pitch black eyes were peering into my soul.

“What’s with the damn average virgin mc act? Are you a walking cliché? This cliché is long dead, we don’t need any more of you, we need chads.”

‘Where in the hell does his vocabulary come from, and also! Don’t insult me!’

“I’m not acting.”

“BULLSHIT! There’s no way someone could be so scared of women!”

“I’m not scared, there’s a reason to it—“

“Whatever excuse it is, throw it out of the window, not worth it.”

The throw of childish arguments ended.

Yami, sighed again, and rubbed his dropping eyes. “Yeah, sure they can join. It’ll make the job easier maybe, it’s not that I care who they are.”

He said, now walking past us. “I came here for what they asked, I’ll be going back to my holidays, tell me when you’re dead or something, I don’t know. See ya.”

And so he left us, it felt as if this place was the least favorite place for him to spend time in.