Chapter 48: Chapter 35 Continue on the Road_2
Hearing the merchant group leader call out, the young knight was taken aback, quickly raising his head. After recognizing the person standing before him, his face turned pale and he swung his head away, pretending not to know him.
“Do you know each other?”
Seeing this, Duanmu Huai asked with interest, to which the merchant leader hesitated and nodded after a moment.
“Yes, Sir Knight, could you explain …”
“Ah, it’s nothing serious. This lad accused me of being a despicable demon yesterday and wanted to duel me several times. In the end, I knocked him out and took him as a captive.”
The merchant team leader relaxed a bit upon hearing this.
“Well, to be honest, he is the son of our guild’s chairman …”
“Oh, so you want him back?”
“He’s all yours. This kind of dead weight just wastes food.”
Duanmu Huai said, glancing at Ogis, who once again controlled her silk threads and tossed the young knight to the merchant leader’s feet. Sweating, the leader signaled his group to take the wailing young knight back. Only after the knight was taken away did he sincerely thank Duanmu Huai.
“Thank you very much, kind Sir Knight. If it weren’t for you, our young master would probably be dead …”
“Oh? Has he always been this idiotic?”
Faced with Duanmu Huai’s question, the merchant leader was somewhat embarrassed, but explained the situation in a low voice. As expected, the imbecile young knight was the son of the “Lake Sword” guild chairman. He had always enjoyed the adventures of knights and even pestered his father to find knights to train him. However, the young man clearly lacked talent. Everyone thought it was normal for a child to dream of being a knight and thought he would mature as he grew older.
That’s what they thought at the time.
Surprisingly, as he aged, he became increasingly obsessed with knight stories. He often walked around in knight armor with a sword on his back, imagining that some old man in the city was an evil witch or an evil dragon was sealed under Carla Carson. In other words, he was like Don Quixote, causing various ridiculous and troublesome incidents.
This gave his parents a great headache, but they couldn’t stop him from being a knight. After all, in Bartonilla, becoming a knight was “politically correct”. If his parents tried to stop him, their guild’s reputation in Bartonilla would be ruined. So they kept him at the villa to prevent him from causing trouble outside.
They had no idea how he escaped … If not for meeting Duanmu Huai, he would probably be a corpse now.
Bartonilla is a pastoral country, but this is only the case for the cities and nearby rural towns. In such a medieval civilization, the areas between each civilization cluster are mostly wastelands. There are often bandits and rogues, and orc goblins are no exception.
A LV3 weakling like him, without a protective divine artifact, would just be killed instantly outside.
Duanmu Huai also explained his situation, and upon hearing that they were from the empire and wanted to find a place in Bartonilla to avoid disasters, the merchant group leader patted his chest and promised that once they returned to Carla Carson, he would report their situation to the chairman. Although the Lake Sword is not a big guild, they can still handle this small favor.
Having more options is always a good thing, so Duanmu Huai agreed with the plan, and they decided to head to Carla Carson together. Now, they didn’t need the idiot to guide them, so Duanmu Huai sent him back to the merchant group promptly. Judging by the way he acted, there was a risk that he might lead them straight into an orc lair.
Of course, before leaving, the merchant group didn’t forget to set fire to the battlefield, incinerating the corpses of both sides along with the ground. This wasn’t because Bartonilla had a tradition of cremations, but because orcs essentially belonged to a type of fungus. When they were about to die, their bodies would scatter a large number of spores which would then grow into a group of small orcs once they landed on the ground.
If they didn’t take care of it now, when they returned, they would just see a larger group of orcs charging at them WAAAAAAGH style.
“Master, what’s the deal with that human?”
As they set off, Ogis, filled with doubts, asked Duanmu Huai.
“You mean the idiot? What’s there to question?”
It wasn’t surprising that Ogis had doubts to Duanmu Huai as Ogis’s main task was to observe, comprehend and feel the souls of humans. From her perspective, human behaviors were indeed filled with various puzzles.
“I don’t understand, why did he gather the courage to challenge you earlier, but quickly chose to submit after failing?”
Ogis was clearly confused.
“It’s simple. He got scared. Despite appearing fearless at first, it was all an act. When he first attacked me, he had the mentality of ‘do or die’. However, during the second round, he was fighting for his pride … because he wouldn’t allow himself to run away with his tail between his legs.”
“But why did he keep following us after that?”
“He couldn’t let it go. People like him, who are neither here nor there, can’t muster the courage to die, but also can’t bear to flee in defeat. Thus, they stick around to see if there are any other opportunities.”
“So, that’s why he surrendered so easily after being caught. His original appearance was just an act, and he’s as fragile as a paper tiger; one slap is enough to flatten him. He just didn’t want to accept the fact that he’s a coward who fears death, so he made up excuses such as being willing to become a demon’s servant to save face.”
After all, it’s typical for chuunibyou patients to enjoy things like skull heads, confronting the world, death metal, looking dark and dazzling … That guy was no exception.
“Humans are really complicated …”
After hearing Duanmu Huai’s explanation, Ogis couldn’t help but sigh.
In response, Duanmu Huai could only laugh.
After all, that’s just the way things are.