"Then how did you do it?"

"Huhu, I have my methods. In fact, this pilgrimage was decided without any advance notice."

Lancelot and Leisha tilted their heads. If she didn't want to have a knights division with her, couldn't she have just not gone on a pilgrimage? When Lancelot, the man known for his common sense, as well as Leisha, tilted their heads, Hillis realized that her explanation was lacking.

"Oh, in our temple, high-ranking priests with some status must go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land at least once in their lives. Usually, people go before they become high-ranking priests or grow too old, but I was too young to go."

No matter how much education Lancelot received at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he wouldn't know all these trivial rules.

Hillis continued to brag about her story, "So then I thought. How can I get rid of these annoying knights?"

In fact, the more personnel that came with her, the more comfortable the pilgrimage would have been. However, Hillis's personality was so free-spirited that if there were many servants around her, she would have felt uncomfortable.

Hillis's personality was thought of by others to be that of a living saint, except for her few close aides. That's why she had to be careful of her words and actions. Technically, Hillis was indeed a living saint, but her personality was far from what people thought of a living saint.

"After much consideration, it seemed the best way was to announce that I was going on a pilgrimage, convene the knights division, then run away before creating the itinerary."

It sounded easy, but in reality, it was only successful after winning a heated discussion against the pope and other elderly high-ranking priests.

As she continued to chat about her story, Hillis opened the window in the wagon and spoke, "Now soon, the Holy Land Zaha-"

Kwang-!!

The sudden sound of an explosion buried Hillis's words. Just as the blast occurred, the carriage stopped abruptly. This caused its occupants to fall to the front of the carriage due to inertia.

Hillis came to her senses quickly and urgently asked through the window, "What happened?"

"It's an attack! Miss Saintess, please don't come out!"

Hearing the paladin from outside, Leisha and Lancelot wielded their weapons and went out of the carriage.

"Danger!" Thinking that it was too dangerous, Hillis tried to stop them but recalled that they were Crows.

She forgot this fact because they looked so different from what she had imagined.

Unable to do anything else, Hillis knelt down in the middle of the carriage and prayed. "My one and only Lord Mother, please give your children a merciful hand and heal your children's wounds-"

With a series of prayers, Hillis's body lit up and blessed the paladins outside the carriage. As various blessings and healing spells constantly encircled the bodies of the paladins, they drew their swords and shouted.

"Our God is with us!"

"Waaah!"

It was the birth of a true cockroach.

* * *

Attacked just shortly before reaching the Holy Land, Zaharam, the paladins halted and looked around. The ambush party seemed to be a battalion-level force containing many magicians. The paladins clenched their teeth when they saw the ambushing magicians on top of the sandhill, focusing on their clothes in particular.

"Curse those black magicians!"

For generations, black magicians were despised as enemies of most religions.

According to religious passages such as the Holy Scripture, black magicians were descendants of those who sinned and drove out God from the world. For power, they betrayed God, the one responsible for creating the world and who lived alongside them.

Of course, it was not possible to know if this was true or not based on old passages, but putting that aside, they were a group who performed human sacrifices and created undead. For this mockery of life, black magicians were treated as public enemies of the world.

The paladins raised their mana and stared at the enemies with their blood boiling. Sensing this change, Mac felt a sense of excitement. He shuddered at the paladin's power, which was at a completely different level from last night. Suppressing his pure desire to fight the paladins, he deflected the magic flying towards him.

The paladins' fighting power differed markedly depending on whether or not they had a priest's support. Given that Vibrio and her men were able to stall Bloody and William when supported by Fernando and considering that Hillis had greater holy power than the pope, these paladins could be regarded as comparable to members of a battle race.

"We are!"

As the leader of the paladins started chanting, the other paladins responded with a chant.

"Strong! Invincible! Strongest!"

The leader of the paladins gave an order. "1st, 2nd, and 3rd squad stay here. The rest are charging with me!"

"Yes!"

Nine of the thirteen paladins remained, and the other four charged on their camels towards the group of people shooting magic from the sandhill. Normally, a force of only four people could have been ignored, but since Hillis's support was concentrated on those four, they had to be treated as a powerful force.

Mac drove the camel he was riding and charged with the paladins, as he said, "I'm coming, too! Lancelot, I leave Miss in your care!"

"Yes!"

Lancelot drew his sword. He made for a very delicate figure with his weapon, not at all appearing dependable. However, Lancelot spent his childhood with Den and was more than caught up in Doomstone's education. After being forced to endure Doomstone's education to play with Den, Lancelot was at least as strong as a normal Crow.

Hundreds of troops and only five people clashed against each other. Despite dealing with an embarrassingly small number of enemies, the black magicians did not ignore the paladins. With every stroke of the sword, two or three of their men fell with a spurt of blood, making it impossible to ignore the paladins.

"Everyone take a power potion!" At the army commander's cry, the soldiers took a potion in unison. Afterward, black mana started to slowly flow out from the soldiers' bodies.

The potion they drank was a kind of mana bursting potion, and once the duration of effect was over, they would be wracked with severe pain for a week. The pain was so intense that it could lead to soldiers committing suicide, unable to endure the pain. Even so, if they did not use it, they would have to worry about the soldiers being murdered.

"Spearmen!"

Despite reinforcing the soldiers with the potion, the commander kept them from approaching the paladins and had them stab from a distance. The potion's effect lasted three days anyway.

"Archers!" Upon this call, soldiers carrying bows loaded their arrows on the desert hill.

"Shoot!" At the commander's order, the flag bearer issued a red flag, and the arrows flew in unison toward the carriage where Hillis was located.

The paladins clenched their teeth as they saw the scene. For now, they just had to trust the paladins guarding Hillis and quickly break past the blockade to take care of the archers and black magicians.

"Breakthrough quickly!"

Meanwhile, the paladins defending Hillis smiled and laughed at the flying arrows. It was a smile that only those who were prepared to die could make. They were determined to protect Hillis, even if they were to be burned alive.

"Squad 1! Get on top of the carriage! Squads 2 and 3 to the front!"

Squad 1's paladins climbed onto the carriage and lifted their shields. Even if they became a hedgehog with arrows here, they wouldn't die unless Hillis's support was cut off. They closed their eyes in the face of the rain of arrows and prepared themselves by raising their mana.

At that moment, a cry came from under the carriage. "Defense! Defense! Defense!"

Leisha lifted the magic wand she bought in Warrant and unfolded a triple shield that encircled the carriage and the paladins. The arrows bounced off the shield.

"Oh! Miss Crow!" The paladins exclaimed in joy.

Yet, in spite of their exclamation of joy, the indiscriminate baptism of arrows caused a crack in the shield. The magic was released without any proper preparation or chant, so it was unstable and wavered. Leisha knew this would occur, so she created three layers of shields.

Following one baptism of arrows, another came without delay, and a sharp sound was heard as the first shield broke.

Leisha took out a magic reagent and a seed from her pocket space and threw them, chanting, "The breath of life is benevolent! Grow!"

The seed that Leisha threw began to bud with Leisha's chant. The bottle of magic reagent thrown out of the shield was broken by an arrow, soaking the sprout and causing it to grow rapidly suddenly. In an instant, the sprout turned into a tree in the air and was shot with arrows. Despite this obstruction, it continued to grow and fell to the ground heavily.

"It is the source of life, so shower it!"

Leisha's magic wand attracted all the water from the water veins in the vicinity. The large pool of water was slightly red as if it had also pulled in the blood of the black magicians and soldiers fighting a fierce battle ahead of the carriage.

With Leisha's beckoning, the pool of water was shot at the tree currently spreading its roots in the desert. Pure water was best if possible, but considering the tree's environment, the water mixed with impurities was also acceptable.

The water dried up rapidly as it soaked into the ground. The tree that Leisha created quickly absorbed it and expanded its body. In an instant, the huge tree grew big enough to replace Leisha's shield and became battered with arrows.

Seeing the tree that had grown large enough to hide the arrows from sight, the paladins cheered.

"Woaaaah!"

"Miss! Miss!"

The paladins chanted, calling her "girl" like Mac.

"Don't call me Miss!" Wanting just to be called by her name like normal, she frowned and shouted, but the paladins did not listen at all.

Assuming that they called her this because of Mac, Leisha vowed to kick his shin when he got back.

As if sensing Leisha's vow, Mac sneezed while he was working hard at the front lines.

"Achoo!"

"Got a cold, Brother Crow?" Asked the leader of the paladins, having just killed two soldiers in a single blow.

"No, I think some sand just went into my nose," Mac answered leisurely before instantly slicing the necks of three soldiers.

"That's good. Even dogs don't catch a summer cold," the paladins' leader said.

"Hahaha, gosh. If I got a cold, I would be lower than a dog, Sir Paladin."

They joked and rotated as they killed the enemy.

"I'm Albatoss, Brother Crow."

"Call me Mac, Sir Paladin."

Mac advanced on foot and swung his sword. The camel that he was riding lost its life from an enemy soldier's spear. Mac had never run in the sand before, and his ride was faster than him, so he felt disappointed that he lost his ride.

The leader of the paladins, Albatoss, had also lost his camel and felt sorry for Mac. Albatoss prayed that the camel, whose body was still warm, would go into God's arms and become another companion for his camel.

The bastards who sold their souls to the black magicians could not go to God's side, but since God also made hell, he thought he could at least land in between the two.

"What are you doing? There are only five enemies! Overwhelm them!"

Despite the commander's orders, the soldiers faltered. The momentum of the five soldiers who had broken through seemed to increase rather than decrease.

"Keuk! Do these bastards not get tired?"

The paladins were healed in an instant each time the spearmen injured them. It was like a healing power akin to the trolls, which were rare to encounter even in the monster paradise, Mount Alps. No, if anything, this healing ability was greater than a troll, not less.

"Cockroach bastards."

It was just 20 minutes since the battle started, but those five had already killed 60 soldiers. No, perhaps it was better to say that fewer enemies had died than expected. After all, they were paladins receiving the saintess's blessing.

The reason for this lower death count was simple. The corpses of those who had died after taking the power potion were controlled with black magic and used as shields against the enemy. If their goal was to stall for time with these ordinary soldiers, you could say that they were used effectively.

Comforting himself with these thoughts, the commander looked up at the sky. It was already evening when the fighting began, but now the sun was setting.

Do we have to deal with those monsters in the dark?

This prospect frightened the commander. Even if it were completely dark around them, the paladins would be able to see as if it were daytime with Hillis's blessing. To even the playing field, he wondered if his army's magicians would be able to cast the same magic on each and every soldier. At that moment, a thought flashed through the commander's head.

If it is impossible to cast magic on each soldier, then can't the entire battlefield be lit up?

"Go back and ask the magicians to use light magic." The commander ordered, sending his deputy to the rear.

The reason that this was a request and not an order was because the magicians at the rear were not under his command. Though his command didn't extend over them, he was still technically their superior.

Looking at the red-colored sky, the commander waited for the light to rise quickly. However, by the time the sun was almost behind the sandhills, no artificial light had risen. Towards the peak of the commander's restlessness, the deputy sent as a messenger returned in a hurry.

"Battalion, battalion commander. They say they won't use magic!"

"What the f*ck?!" At the absurdity of his deputy's reply, the commander let out a torrent of curses.

"That's, we need magic to keep that magician with the saintess in check…"

"F*ck! Are those words or farts! If those cockroaches break through right now, the magicians will be dead first!"

The deputy was startled by his superior's anger.

"Fire! Light all the torches!"

"Ye, yes!"

The new order spurred any soldiers with free hands into immediately lighting the torches. No matter how many torches were lit, the number of prepared torches was limited, so it would be impossible to make the battlefield as bright as daytime. However, just being able to secure the soldiers' vision was enough.

"Damn it, if only Captain Malecia were here!" The commander gnashed his teeth.

If there were at least one person who could deal with those charging men trying to kill the black magicians, he would be able to send the free soldiers to where the saintess was. However, if some of the troops were repositioned right now, this area would be breached.

Right now, he wanted to pull out his sword and fight the paladins, but as the commander, he could not act rashly. If it were a duel instead, he would have stepped up right away.

At that moment, a torchlight appeared in the darkness of the desert far away. Then the torchlight began running towards them. The commander panicked, assuming that it was more paladins arriving as reinforcements. Next to the torchbearer was a flag bearer on a camel. Seeing the flag's insignia, the commander felt a feeling of hot emotion dominating his whole body.

"Open the way! It is Captain Malecia!"

The soldiers cheered at the commander's cry.

"Open the way!"

* * *

Malecia quickly rode his camel and rushed in between the soldiers. Fortunately, the soldiers also saw the flag and quickly opened the way.

In an instant, when he arrived near the paladins amongst the soldiers, he jumped off the camel and attacked. The paladin who received Malecia's dark red sword aura felt his foot sink into the sand from the strong impact.

The paladin felt his wrist go numb and groaned. "Keuk!"

Malecia landed easily, heading for the temporarily stunned paladin. He stabbed his sword into the gap in the paladin's right shoulder. He planned to cut off the paladin's right arm and create a weakness for the enemy. The saintess could reattach a severed arm, but regrowing it would be near impossible.

At that time, a sword struck Malecia's from the bottom and pushed it up, making his sword just slightly cut the paladin's shoulder rather than chopping it off completely.

The paladin screamed at the pain coming from his bleeding shoulder. "Kuaaak!"

However, a white holy light soon healed the paladin's shoulder. Malecia became speechless at the sight of this healing. With this, he could understand why the troops were struggling against just five people.

"Thank, thank you, Mac." The paladin's pain had not dissipated, and he had cold sweat running down his body, but he still thanked Mac.

Mac pointed his sword at Malecia and said, "You can just buy me a beer later."

"Then I'll buy you a whole barrel!"

Although Mac had a playful attitude, the power felt from his sword made Malecia realize that he was not ordinary.

"Oh! You're a strong person. Who are you?" Mac asked playfully, but he remained vigilant of the turban-wearing men surrounding him and the paladins.

It hadn't been long since Mac left Olympus, but Malecia was the strongest person he had encountered so far. One-on-one, he was confident of his victory, but it would not be easy in a group setting with paladins he had never fought with before.

At Mac's wariness, Malecia laughed, "It seems I still have a long way to go if I am being asked who I am."

It wasn't an answer to Mac's question, but ironically, it was a paladin who ended up introducing Malecia.

"Black Knight Malecia!"

"The Mercenary King!"

At the paladin's shout, the soldiers surrounding them erupted in cheers. It was a cheer formed from both the pride and relief that such a strong man was on their side.

"Well dang, to hear the words 'Mercenary King' from an Empire citizen, what an event." Although Malecia said this, he enjoyed the title of mercenary king.

Usually, the term "Mercenary King" in the Empire was used to refer to the leader of the current mercenary alliance. As such, someone being called the Mercenary King by an Empire citizen was no different from being recognized as having great skill. It was all the more notable because it was a title earned through a war with the Empire as an enemy.

"Since this isn't a war started by my own will, I would like to be called Black Knight rather than the Mercenary King," Malecia requested.

"What does a title matter? Let's cross swords," Mac said, feeling his hands itch as he formed his martial aura.

"Good!" Malecia shouted and went on to strike first. At the same time, Malecia's men and the paladins began their battle.

Malecia's sword aura headed for Albatoss, who received Malecia's sword with hardened eyes. Against Malecia's pressuring blade, Albatoss tried to push back with the help of Hillis's divine power.

During this exchange, a turbaned man went after the back of Albatoss's neck, saying, "Ahuh! Play with me too!"

Kang!

Mac threw the broken spear that was by his feet and saved Albatoss. The turbaned man aiming for Albatoss's neck almost dropped his sword from the powerful impact of the spear that appeared to have been lightly thrown.

Malecia let Albatoss go and retreated before his sword became filled with Hillis's power, following which two turbaned men naturally attached themselves to the paladins' leader. Albatoss had no choice but to give his full attention to the constant barrage of swords, left with no opportunity to thank Mac.

Mac didn't miss that opportunity and swung his sword at Malecia, aiming for his heart. The captain blocked Mac's sword using his own. No, he thought he blocked it. He judged that such a sharp sword that was as cruel as it was accurate should not be blocked.

They both began thinking at the same time.

This blow resembled the blow that killed his subordinates who were transporting the luggage. After this thought entered his mind, Malecia realized that this was the killer he was looking for.

Malecia quickly filled his sword with mana and rotated it. Mac's sword was turned upwards by Malecia's mana, and Malecia just barely managed to dodge the sword aimed for his heart by twisting his body. Unfortunately, the sword that he used to create the gap broke into two pieces.

"Sword!"

A soldier threw the sword that he was holding at Malecia's shout. Mac instantly struck at the sword flying towards them instead of striking at Malecia's life. Immediately after striking the sword, Malecia threw the broken half-sword without hesitation at Mac. Either way, Malecia's head would have been sent flying the moment he was about to receive the sword.

Mac deflected the broken half-sword that flew straight at his neck. Malecia did not use the gap to attack but rather to escape from his position. It was a wise decision.

Mac's reaction speed was well ahead of Malecia's expectation. It would be hard to kill Mac, even if he and all of his men rushed him.

He wanted to kill Mac rather than the paladins, but even when his troops outnumbered the enemy, they were just barely maintaining an even match against the paladins strengthened by the saintess's power.

No matter how strengthened the paladins became with Hillis's support, they were not used to handling that power and became unsteady, creating gaps. Thanks to this, Malecia's men alone were somehow able to match the paladins, but Mac was a monster that could disrupt the balance of the battle.

In other words, Malecia had to deal with Mac by himself in order to maintain the current situation in the confrontation.

"I'm going to go crazy."

Malecia thought that this place might unexpectedly become his grave.

Slightly distancing him from the battlefield with a laugh, Malecia stole the spears of the soldiers around him and threw them at Mac.

"Don't mind me, shoot arrows at him!".After saying this, Malecia approached Mac again.

The commander paused for a moment before preparing the archers to shoot. "If possible, aim only at the enemy."

"But Captain Malecia might get hit," one of the archers pointed out.

"...Just believe, as I will too."

The archers nodded at the commander's stern look.

Of the archers constantly firing arrows at the Hillis's carriage, some changed their target.

"Deputy, covertly prepare to retreat."

The deputy nodded at the commander.

The chances were slim, but in the case that the paladins guarding Hillis came over, it would be foolhardy to have the soldiers confront them. Moreover, it was also necessary to consider the possibility that the rest of the saintess's guards were on the way. If so, it would be safer to go back to the Holy Land Zaharam and hold the fort. At least there, the soldiers would have full visibility.

The commander quietly watched the scene of the paladins and his turbaned men in a desperate struggle.

Hitting the flying arrows with his sword, Mac burst out laughing for a long time. "Ahahahaha!"

Mac deflected Malecia's sword that was rushing towards his throat. As Mac was about to cut downwards, an arrow flew towards him from another direction. Malecia also occasionally had to avoid the arrows shot by his subordinates, but most of the arrows flew at Mac.

Kang! Kang! Kang!

As Mac was striking away the arrows, Malecia picked up a spear rolling on the ground and launched a stab toward Mac's side. Mac tried to evade with a flick of his ankle as usual, but his foot sank into the desert sand.

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